Gabrielle's name to her again. Next morning, in a
calm and serious mood, he approached her on the subject of his return
to Lapton.

"Would you mind very much," he said, "if I don't go back to Devonshire?
I feel that I'm rather out of place there. You see, I'm older than the
others. Do you think it could be arranged?"

At first she feigned surprise--she could do nothing else--but in doing
so she cleverly contrived to make it easy for him.

"If you wish it I will write to Dr. Considine," she said. She didn't
suggest the elaborate falsehoods on which she would build her letter.
"I think you are old enough to decide," she told him. "What would you
like to do?"

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't travel?" he said. "I feel that I
want a change. I should like to see something of the world."

So, without further difficulty, it was arranged. She sent him round
the world with a new tutor, waiting placidly and happily at Overton for
his return. It was in these days that I became acquainted with her and
conceived the admiration for her that I still hold. She often spoke to
me in terms of the most utter devotion of her son. I imagined her an
ideal mother, as indeed she was.

After a year or more abroad Arthur returned, very much the man of the
world. At his own desire he went up to Oxford, where he passed a
perfectly normal three years and took a decent degree. In his last
term he fell in love with the daughter of a neighbouring parson, whom,
in due course, he married. The following year the young people went
out to New Zealand, a country to which Arthur had been attracted on his
travels, and that is all that I know of him.

During all this time Mrs. Payne corresponded regularly with Gabrielle.
Now that Arthur's safety was beyond question and even in the earlier
debatable period, she had not the least objection to sharing him with
her rival ... at a distance. She even sent her his letters from
abroad. In this way they arrived at a curious and altogether happy
intimacy. Gabrielle's letters became part of her life, and when, in
the autumn after Arthur's engagement was announced, they suddenly
stopped, Mrs. Payne felt that she had suffered a loss. She wrote two
or three times to Lapton, but received no reply, and it was only by the
chance meeting of a friend who had been staying in Devonshire that she
learned what had happened. It came to her as a piece of idle gossip,
but the shock of an extraordinary coin