s near us as we can--talk about him, and about
all the old, happy times. We did have such awfully good times
together, didn't we? We're never going to get far away from him."

The boy gave a great sigh.

"I've been getting a long way from everything," he said.
"Since--since it happened I couldn't let myself think: it was just as
if I were going mad. The only thing I've wanted to do was to fight,
and I've had that."

"He looks as if his mind were more tired than his body," David Linton
said that evening. "One can see that he has just been torturing
himself with all sorts of useless thoughts. You'll have to take him
in hand, Norah. Put the other work aside for a while and go out with
him--ride as much as you can. It won't do you any harm, either."

"We never thought old Wally would be one of the Tired People," Norah
said musingly.

"No, indeed. And I think there has been no one more utterly tired.
It won't do, Norah: the boy will be ill if we don't look after him."

"We've just got to make him feel how much we want him," Norah said.

"Yes. And we have to teach him to think happily about Jim--not to
fight it all the time. Fighting won't make it any better," said David
Linton, with a sigh.

But there was no riding for Wally, for a while. The next day found
him too ill to get up, and the doctor, sent for hastily, talked of
shock and over-strain, and ordered bed until his temperature should be
pleased to go down: which was not for many a weary day. Possibly it
was the best thing that could have happened to Wally. He grew, if not
reconciled, at least accustomed to his loss; grew, too, to thinking
himself a coward when he saw the daily struggle waged by the two
people he loved best. And Norah was wise enough to call in other
nurses: chief of them the Hunt babies, Alison and Michael, who rolled
on his bed and played with him, while Geoffrey sat as close to him as
possible, and could hardly be lured from the room. It was not for
weeks after his return that they heard Wally laugh; and then it was at
some ridiculous speech of Michael's that he suddenly broke into the
ghost of his old mirth.

Norah's heart gave a leap.

"Oh, he's better!" she thought. "You blessed little Michael!"

And so, healing came to the boy's bruised soul. Not that the old,
light-hearted Wally came back: but he learned to talk of Jim, and no
longer to hug his sorrow in silence. Something became his of the
peace that had fallen u