“Come and help me look for him, he’s sure to be about. Tell Appleby, do you hear? Raby, I say,” he exclaimed, as his cousin appeared in the hall, “Jeff’s been kicked out an hour ago! I’m going to find him!” and the poor lad, with a heart almost bursting, flung open the door and rushed out into the street.
Alas! it was a fool’s errand, and he knew it. Still, he could not endure to do nothing.
After two weary hours he gave it up, and returned home dispirited and furious. Walker and Appleby had taken much less time to appreciate the uselessness of the search, and had returned an hour ago from a perfunctory walk round one or two neighbouring streets.
Our young Achilles, terrible in his wrath, would see no one, not even his mother, not even Raby. Once or twice that evening they heard the front door slam, and knew he once more was on the look-out. Mrs Rimbolt, alarmed at the storm which she had raised, already repented of her haste, and telegraphed to Mr Rimbolt to come to London.
Raby, bewildered and miserable, shut herself up in her room and was seen by no one. It was a wretched night for everybody; and when next morning Mrs Rimbolt, sitting down to breakfast, was met with the news that neither Master Percy nor Miss Raby wanted breakfast, she began to feel that the affair was being overdone.
When Mr Rimbolt arrived, though he concealed his feelings better, he was perhaps the most mortified of all at the wretched misadventure which during his absence had turned Jeffreys adrift beyond recall. He had known his secretary’s secret, and had held it sacred even from his wife. And watching Jeffreys’ brave struggle to live down his bad name, he had grown to respect and even admire him, and to feel a personal interest in the ultimate success of his effort. Now, a miserable accident, which, had he been at home, could have been prevented by a word, had wrecked the work and the hopes of years, and put beyond Mr Rimbolt’s power all further chance of helping it on.
About a week after Mr Rimbolt’s return, when all but Percy were beginning to settle down again into a semblance of their old order of things, Raby knocked at her uncle’s door and inquired if he was busy. She looked happier than he had seen her since his return. The reason was easy to guess. The post had brought her a letter from her father.
“I thought you would like to see it,” said she. “He has got leave at last, and expects to be home at the end of September. Will you read the letter?” added she, colouring; “there’s something else in it I should like you to see.”
The letter was chiefly about the prospects of coming home. Towards the close Lieutenant-Colonel Atherton (for he had got promotion) wrote:
“You ask me to tell you about poor Forrester and his family.”