ute to be gone through now. He sat down by his father.

"You have seen Ralph, I hear," observed Lady Torridon.

Chris did not know how much she knew, and simply assented. He had told
his father everything.

"I have some news," she went on in an unusually talkative mood, "for you
both. Ralph is to marry Beatrice Atherton--the girl you saw in his
rooms, Christopher."

Sir James gave an exclamation and leant forward; and Chris tightened his
lips.

"She is a friend of Mr. More's," went on Lady Torridon, apparently
unconscious of the sensation she was making, "but that is Ralph's
business, I suppose."

"Why did Ralph not write to me?" asked his father, with a touch of
sternness.

Lady Torridon answered him by a short pregnant silence, and then went
on--

"I suppose he wished me to break it to you. It will not be for two or
three years. She says she cannot leave Mrs. More for the present."

Chris's brain was confused by the news, and yet it all seemed external
to him. As he had ridden up to the house in the evening he had
recognised for the first time how he no longer belonged to the place;
his two years at Lewes had done their work, and he came to his home now
not as a son but as a guest. He had even begun to perceive the
difference after his quarrel with Ralph, for he had not been conscious
of the same personal sting at his brother's sins that he would have felt
five years ago. And now this news, while it affected him, did not
penetrate to the still sanctuary that he had hewn out of his heart
during those months of discipline.

But his father was roused.

"He should have written to me," he said sternly. "And, my wife, I will
beg you to remember that I have a right to my son's business."

Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed
his hand tenderly through Chris's arm.

* * * * *

It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes
later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two
years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But
the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the
psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had
been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and
the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and
shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He
was fu