His face was white
and thin, but his eyes shone with a determined light.
"We will hear from Arnold to-morrow," he would say, hopefully, at night.
"I know he is doing his utmost."
But the morrow came, and still no word from the absent ones. The heart
of the mother had lost all hope, when one night there came a summons at
the door after the bereaved parents had retired.
"It is Jason," said Allan Dilke, rising hastily and dressing, when the
servant had tapped upon the door and announced that visitors desired to
see him.
"Show them into the drawing-room," he said, as he came forth in
dressing-gown and slippers.
"But they are rough, sea-faring men, sir," replied the domestic. "Shall
I--"
"Do as I bid you!" interrupted the master of the house, sternly. "No
room is too good for those who bring tidings of my son."
A moment later two men stood before him in rough sailor garb.
"We come to inform you that--" began one of them, who was no other than
Shaky, when Allan Dilke interrupted him.
"If my son is with you," he said, firmly, "bring him to me.
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