always restive under provocation. To
rival with a man like Mutimer! Better that the severance with old days
should be complete.

He talked it all over very frankly with his mother, who felt that her
son's destiny was not easily foreseen.

'And what do you propose to do, Hubert?' she asked, when they spoke of
the future.

'To study, principally art. In a fortnight I go to Rome.'

Mrs. Eldon had gone thither thirty years ago.

'Think of me in my chair sometimes,' she said, touching his hands with
her wan fingers.

CHAPTER XVI

Alice reached home again on Christmas Eve. It was snowing; she came in
chilled and looking miserable. Mrs. Mutimer met her in the hall, passed
her, and looked out at the open door, then turned with a few white
flecks on her gown.

'Where's Dick?

'He couldn't come,' replied the girl briefly, and ran up to her room.

'Arry was spending the evening with friends. Since tea-time the old
woman had never ceased moving from room to room, up and down stairs. She
had got out an old pair of Richard's slippers, and had put them before
the dining-room fire to warm. She had made a bed for Richard, and had
a fire burning in the chamber. She had made arrangements for her
eldest son's supper. No word had come from Wanley, but she held to the
conviction that this night would see Richard in London.

Alice came down and declared that she was very hungry. Her mother went
to the kitchen to order a meal, which in the end she prepared with her
own hands. She seemed to have a difficulty in addressing any one. Whilst
Alice ate in silence, Mrs. Mutimer kept going in and out of the room;
when the girl rose from the table, she stood before her and asked:

'Why couldn't he come?'

Alice went to the fireplace, knelt down, and spread her hands to the
blaze. Her mother approached her again.

'Won't you give me no answer, Alice?'

'He couldn't come, mother. Something important is keeping him.'

'Something important? And why did he want you there?'

Alice rose to her feet, made one false beginning, then spoke to the
point.

'Dick's married, mother.'

The old woman's eyes seemed to grow small in her wrinkled face, as if
directing themselves with effort upon something minute. They looked
straight into the eyes of her daughter, but had a more distant focus.
The fixed gaze continued for nearly a minute.

'What are you talking about, girl?' she said at length, in a strange,
rattling voice. 'Why, I've s