"Oh! I'm glad to see a fire," she said, and sat close beside it in an
easy chair.

Then Raymond spoke.

"It is good of you all to come and lend a hand over this difficult
matter. I appreciate it, and specially I thank Sabina for letting us
consider her son's welfare. She knows that we all want to befriend him
and that we all are his friends. It's rather difficult for me to say
much; but if you can show me how to do anything practical and establish
Abel's position and win his goodwill, at any cost to myself, I shall
thank you. I've done what I could, but I confess this finds me beaten
for the moment. You'd better say what you all think, and see if you
agree."

The talk that followed was inconsequent and rambling. For a considerable
time it led nowhere. Miss Ironsyde was taciturn. It occupied all her
energies to conceal the fact that she was suffering a good deal of
physical pain. She made no original suggestions. Churchouse, according
to his wont, generalised; but it was through a generalisation that they
approached something definite.

"He has yet to learn that we cannot live to ourselves, or design life's
pattern single-handed," declared Ernest. "Life, in fact, is rather like
a blind man weaving a basket: we never see our work, and we have to
trust others for the material. And if we better realised how blind we
were, we should welcome and invite criticism more freely than we do."

"No man makes his own life--I've come to see that," admitted Raymond.
"The design seems to depend much on your fellow creatures; your triumph
or failure is largely the work of others. But it depends on your own
judgment to the extent that you can choose what fellow creatures shall
help you."

Estelle approved this.

"And if we could only show Abel that, and make him feel this
determination to be independent of everybody is a mistake. But he told
me once, most reasonably, that he didn't mind depending on those who
were good to him. He said he would trust them."

"Trust's everything. It centres on that. Can I get his trust, or can't
I?"

"Not for the present, Ray. I expect his mind is in a turmoil over this
running away. It's all my fault and I take the blame. Until he can think
calmly you'll never get any power over him. The thing is to fill his
mind full with something else."

"Find out if you can what's in his thoughts," advised Sabina. "We say
this and that and the other, and plan what must be done, but I judge the
first pers