can say it. Then when it is over he will bring you down here.
The Doctor and Mr. Puddicombe will come down by a later train. Of course
it is painful," said Mrs. Wortle, "but you must bear up." To her it seemed
to be so painful that she was quite sure that she could not have borne it.
To be married for the third time, and for the second time to the same
husband! To Mrs. Peacocke, as she thought of it, the pain did not so much
rest in that, as in the condition of life which these things had forced
upon her.

"I must go up to town to-morrow, and must be away for two days," said the
Doctor out loud in the school, speaking immediately to one of the ushers,
but so that all the boys present might hear him. "I trust that we shall
have Mr. Peacocke with us the day after to-morrow."

"We shall be very glad of that," said the usher.

"And Mrs. Peacocke will come and eat her dinner again like before?" asked
a little boy.

"I hope so, Charley."

"We shall like that, because she has to eat it all by herself now."

All the school, down even to Charley, the smallest boy in it, knew all
about it. Mr. Peacocke had gone to America, and Mrs. Peacocke was going
up to London to be married once more to her own husband,--and the Doctor
and Mr. Puddicombe were both going to marry them. The usher of course
knew the details more clearly than that,--as did probably the bigger boys.
There had even been a rumour of the photograph which had been seen by one
of the maid-servants,--who had, it is to be feared, given the information
to the French teacher. So much, however, the Doctor had felt it wise to
explain, not thinking it well that Mr. Peacocke should make his
reappearance among them without notice.

On the afternoon of the next day but one, Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke were
driven up to the school in one of the Broughton flys. She went quickly up
into her own house, when Mr. Peacocke walked into the school. The boys
clustered round him, and the three assistants, and every word said to him
was kind and friendly;--but in the whole course of his troubles there had
never been a moment to him more difficult than this,--in which he found it
so nearly impossible to say anything or to say nothing. "Yes, I have been
over very many miles since I saw you last." This was an answer to young
Talbot, who asked him whether he had not been a great traveller whilst he
was away.

"In America," suggested the French usher, who had heard of the photograp