"I am so glad you are better this morning, dear mamma," she was saying. "I hoped you would be when I went to bed, at three o'clock. You were sleeping so peacefully. I am sure you will be quite well again soon, if we can manage to keep you quiet, and if you won't worry yourself. Everything is quite right."
Geoff's face hardened again.
"I know what all that means," he thought. "Yes, indeed, everything is so right that I, I, have to run away like a thief, because I am too miserable to bear it any more."
And he lingered no longer.
He made his way out of the house without difficulty. It was getting light after a fashion by this time, though it was quite half an hour earlier than he usually started for school. He felt chilly—chillier than he had ever felt before, though it was not a very cold morning. But going out breakfastless does not tend to make one feel warm, and of this sort of thing Geoff had but scant experience. His bag, too, felt very heavy; he glanced up and down the street with a vague idea that perhaps he would catch sight of some boy who, for a penny or two, would carry it for him to the omnibus; but there was no boy in sight. No one at all, indeed, except a young man, who crossed the street from the opposite side while Geoff was looking about him, and walked on slowly a little in front. He was a very respectable-looking young man, far too much so to ask him to carry the bag, yet as Geoff overtook him—for, heavy though it was, the boy felt he must walk quickly to get off as fast as possible—the young man glanced up with a good-natured smile.
"Excuse me, sir," he said civilly, "your bag's a bit heavy for you. Let me take hold of it with you, if we're going the same way."
Geoffrey looked at him doubtfully. He was too much of a Londoner to make friends hastily.
"Thank you," he said. "I can manage it. I'm only going to the corner to wait for the omnibus."
"Just precisely what I'm going to do myself," said the other. "I'm quite a stranger hereabouts. I've been staying a day or two with a friend of mine who keeps a livery stable, and I'm off for the day to Shalecray, to see another friend. Can you tell me, sir, maybe, if the omnibus that passes near here takes one to the railway station?"
"Which railway station?" said Geoff, more than half inclined to laugh at the stranger's evident countrifiedness.