s the life of the
party, and a certain awe and strangeness which had developed in his
boys' minds towards him, during the last few weeks, passed away.

It was curious that in these days he would neither sit nor walk alone if
he could help it. Catherine or a stray parishioner was almost always
with him. All the while, vaguely, in the depths of consciousness, there
was the knowledge that behind this piece of quiet water on which his
life was now sailing, there lay storm and darkness, and that in front
loomed fresh possibilities of tempest. He knew, in a way, that it was a
treacherous peace which had overtaken him. And yet it was peace. The
pressure exerted by the will had temporarily given way, and the deepest
forces of the man's being had reasserted themselves. He could feel and
love and pray again; and Catherine, seeing the old glow in the eyes, the
old spring in the step, made the whole of life one thank-offering.

On the evening following that moment of reaction in the Murewell
library, Robert had written to the squire. His letter had been
practically a withdrawal from the correspondence.

'I find,' he wrote, 'that I have been spending too much time and energy
lately on these critical matters. It seems to me that my work as a
clergyman has suffered. Nor can I deny that your book and your letters
have been to me a source of great trouble of mind.

'My heart is where it was, but my head is often confused. Let
controversy rest a while. My wife says I want a holiday; I think so
myself, and we are off in three weeks; not, however, I hope, before we
have welcomed you home again, and got you to open the new Institute,
which is already dazzling the eyes of the village by its size and
splendour, and the white paint that Harris the builder has been
lavishing upon it.'

Ten days later, rather earlier than was expected, the squire and Mrs.
Darcy were at home again. Robert re-entered the great house the morning
after their arrival with a strange reluctance. Its glow and
magnificence, the warm perfumed air of the hall, brought back a sense of
old oppressions, and he walked down the passage to the library with a
sinking heart. There he found the squire busy as usual with one of those
fresh cargoes of books which always accompanied him on any homeward
journey. He was more brown, more wrinkled, more shrunken; more full of
force, of harsh epigram, of grim anecdote than ever. Robert sat on the
edge of the table laughing over his st