Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last
beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the
stairs.

"Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm
afraid she will not get down again to see you."

"Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to
Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a
man of personality."

"He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and
Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good
as gold."

"Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his
son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three
healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a
graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take
it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over
the disappointment."

"Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver.

"It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied
to think of her so far away."

"Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he
appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort.

"By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the
rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable.
"I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a
great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said
about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be
old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which
the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we
can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral
tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels."

Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan,
glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for
amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His
colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he
brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some
intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him,
that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were
in Virginia's.

"I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling
instinctively that the conversation wa