falgar Square and into the Tottenham
Court Road, and so on out into the Shires until he came to Enderby
House.

Outside all was as he had left it seven years before, though the hedges
were not so well kept and the grass was longer before the house. An air
of loneliness pervaded all the place. No one met him at the door. He
rode round into the court-yard and called. A man-servant came out. From
him he learned that four of Cromwell's soldiers were quartered in the
house, that all the old servants, save two, were gone, and that his son
had been expelled the place by Cromwell's order two days before. Inside
the house there was less change. Boon companion of the boisterous
cavaliers as his son had been, the young man's gay hours had been spent
more away from Enderby House than in it.

When young Enderby was driven from his father's house by Cromwell, he
determined to join the Scotch army which was expected soon to welcome
Charles the Second from France. There he would be in contact with Lord
Rippingdale and his Majesty. When Cromwell was driven from his place,
great honours might await him. Hearing in London, however, that his
father had returned, and was gone on to the estate, he turned his horse
about and rode back again, travelling by night chiefly, and reached
Enderby House four days after his father's arrival there.

He found his father seated alone at the dinner-table. Swinging wide open
the door of the dining-room he strode in aggressively.

The old man stood up in his place at the table and his eyes brightened
expectantly when he saw his son, for his brain was quickened by the
thought that perhaps, after all his wrong-doing, the boy had come back
to stand by him, a repentant prodigal. He was a man of warm and firm
spirit, and now his breast heaved with his emotions. This boy had been
the apple of his eye. Since the day of his birth he had looked for great
things from him, and had seen in him the refined perpetuation of the
sturdy race of the Enderbys. He counted himself but a rough sort of
country gentleman, and the courtly face of his son had suggested the
country gentleman cast in a finer mould. He was about to speak kindly as
of old, but the young man, with clattering spurs, came up to the other
end of the table, and with a dry insolence said:

"By whose invitation do you come here?"

The blood fled from the old man's heart. For a moment he felt sick, and
his face turned white. He dropped his head a little a