Part 14 (1/2)

”Will you excuse me, ma'am, if I go into the city for about an hour? I have to call at the post-office for letters.”

”Look here,” said Jonah, ”we don't let our a.s.sistants out any time they like. It's not usual. They ought to stay here. There's plenty of work to do here.”

”It's very important for me to get the letters, Mrs Trimble,” said Jeffreys.

”Well, of course, this once,” said the matron, glancing uneasily at her son; ”but, as Jonah says, we like our young men to stay in, especially at night. We parted with Mr Fison because he was not steady.”

”Thank you, ma'am,” said Jeffreys; ”if the letters have come to-day I shall not have to trouble you again. Can I do anything for you in town?”

”That chap won't do,” said Jonah to his mother when at last Jeffreys started on his expedition.

”I think he will; he means well. It wouldn't do, Jonah,” said the good lady, ”to have all the trouble again of finding a young man. I think Mr Jeffreys will do.”

”I don't,” said Jonah sulkily, taking up a newspaper.

Jeffreys meanwhile, in a strange frame of mind, hurried down to the post-office. The day's adventures seemed like a dream to him as he walked along, and poor Forrester seemed the only reality of his life.

Would there be a letter? And what news would it bring him? During the last twelve hours a new hope and object in life had opened before him.

But what was it worth, if, after all, at this very moment Forrester should be lying lifeless at Bolsover?

”Have you any letter for John Jeffreys?” he asked; but his heart beat so loud that he scarcely heard his own voice.

The man, humming cheerily to himself, took a batch of letters out of a pigeon-hole and began to turn them over. Jeffreys watched him feverishly, and marvelled at his indifference.

”What name did you say--Jones?”

”No, Jeffreys--John Jeffreys.”

Again he turned over the bundle, almost carelessly. At length he extracted a letter, which he tossed onto the counter.

”There you are, my beauty,” said he.

Jeffreys, heeding nothing except that it was addressed in Mr Frampton's hand, seized the missive and hastened from the office.

At the first shop window he stood and tore it open.

”My dear Jeffreys,--I was glad to hear from you, although your letter gave me great pain. It would have been wiser in you to return here, whatever your circ.u.mstances might be; wiser still would it have been had you never run away. But I do not write now to reproach you. You have suffered enough, I know. I write to tell you of Forrester.”

Jeffreys gave a gasp for breath before he dare read on.

”The poor fellow has made a temporary rally, but the doctors by no means consider him out of danger. Should he recover, which I fear is hardly probable, I grieve to say the injuries he has received would leave him a cripple for life. There is an injury to the spine and partial paralysis, which, at the best, would necessitate his lying constantly on his back, and thus being dependent entirely on others. If he can bear it, he is to be removed to his home in a day or two. He has asked about you, and on my telling him that I was writing to you, said, 'Tell him I know it was only an accident.' I am sure that this letter will grieve you; I wish I could say anything which will help you. May G.o.d in His mercy bring good to us all out of this sorrow! As for yourself, I hope that your guardian's resentment will be short-lived, and that you will let me hear of your welfare. Count on me as a friend, in spite of all.

”Yours always,--

”T. Frampton.”

”In spite of all!” groaned poor Jeffreys, as he crushed the letter into his pocket. ”Will no one have pity on me?”

CHAPTER SEVEN.