“This is joy! O this is joy,” she said. “Nothing else could be so great a happiness—except going home. Welcome, welcome!” Then she held his hand, with eyes full of tears searching his face. “But, my dear Denham, you have been ill—surely you have been ill. How thin!—how altered! What have you been doing to yourself?”
“He has walked the whole way here from Valenciennes,” cried Roy, before Denham could speak. “He was to have ridden, and he gave up the horse to somebody else.”
“Was that necessary?” the Colonel asked.
“I thought it so, sir.”
“Papa, he had no money left. That was why. He gave it all away. He couldn’t even pay the driver, coming up here.”
“But you could have borrowed from somebody—you would know that I should repay!”
“If I could have been sure, sir, that you would still be here—but there was no certainty. And so many now are in difficulties, that it is no easy matter to borrow—except by going to those whom I will have nothing to do with.”
“How did you manage about food? My dear, make him sit down. How did you manage?”
The question was disregarded. “Any letters?” Ivor asked.
“One from Mrs. Fairbank a few weeks since. That is all. Good accounts of Polly and Molly. Have you not heard from them?”