How long he sat thus he knew not. He heard the voices and tread of the
other lodgers in the room; he heard the harsh groan of the bolt on the
outer door downstairs; and he saw the candle die down in its socket.
But he never moved or let go the boy's hand.

Presently--about one or two in the morning, he thought--the hard
breathing ceased, and a turn of the head on the pillow told him the
sleeper was awake.

"Gov'nor, you there?" whispered the boy.

"Yes, old fellow."

"It's dark; I'm most afeared."

Reginald lay on the bed beside him, and put an arm round him.

The boy became more easy after this, and seemed to settle himself once
more to sleep. But the breathing was shorter and more laboured, and the
little brow that rested against the watcher's cheek grew cold and damp.

For half an hour more the feeble flame of life flickered on, every
breath seeming to Reginald as he lay there motionless, scarcely daring
to breathe himself, like the last.

Then the boy seemed suddenly to rouse himself and lifted his head.

"Gov'nor--that pallis!--I'm gettin' in--I hear them calling--come there
too, gov'nor!"

And the head sank back on the pillow, and Reginald, as he turned his
lips to the forehead, knew that the little valiant soul had fought his
way into the beautiful palace at last, and was already hearing the music
of those voices within as they welcomed him to his hero's reward.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

It is strange how often our fortunes and misfortunes, which we are so
apt to suppose depend on our own successes or failures, turn out to have
fallen into hands we least expected, and to have been depending on
trains of circumstances utterly beyond our range of imagination.

Who, for instance, would have guessed that a meeting of half a dozen
business men in a first-floor room of a New York office could have any
bearing on the fate of the Cruden family? Or that an accident to Major
Lambert's horse while clearing a fence at one of the --shire hunts
should also affect their prospects in life?

But so it was.

While Reginald, tenderly nursed by his old school friend, was slowly
recovering from his illness in Liverpool, and while Mrs Cruden and
Horace, in their shabby London lodging, were breaking into their last
hundred pounds, and wondering how, even with the boy's improved wages
and promise of literary success, they should be able to keep a
comfortable home for their scattered