I could not help laughing, and laughing made me cry. Miss
Cardigan promptly put me back on the cushions and bade me lie
still; and she sat in front of me there like a good shaggy
human watch dog. I should not say _shaggy_, for she was entirely
neat and trim; but there was something of sturdy and
uncompromising about her which suggested the idea. I lay
still, and by and by went off into a sleep. That restored me.
I woke up a couple of hours later all right and quite myself
again. I was able to rush through the bit of study I had
wanted; and went over to Mme. Ricard's just a minute before
school opened.

I had expected some uncomfortable questioning about my staying
out all night; but things do not happen as one expects. I got
no questioning, except from one or two of the girls. Mme.
Ricard was ill, that was the news in school; the other
teachers had their hands full, and did not give themselves any
extra trouble about the doings of so regular and trusted an
inmate as myself. The business of the day rolled on and rolled
off, as if last night had never been; only that I walked in a
dream; and when night came I was free to go to bed early and
open my budget of thoughts and look at them. From without, all
was safe.

All day my thoughts had been rushing off, away from the
schoolroom and from studies and masters, to look at a receding
railway train, and follow a grey coat in among the crowd of
its fellows, where its wearer mingled in all the business and
avocations of his interrupted course of life. Interrupted!
yes, what a change had come to his and to mine; and yet all