Robin
remembered with what indignation he had heard of his father's visits to
the Cove, his friendship with Bethel and the rest--but surely it was
they who had driven him out! It was their own doing from the first--or
rather his aunt and uncle's. He was beginning to be annoyed with his
aunt and uncle. He felt vaguely that they had got him into the mess
and were quite unable to pull him out again; which reflection brought
him back to the original main business, namely, that there was a mess,
and a bad one.

It was one of his qualities of youth that he could not wait; patience
was an utterly unlearned virtue, and this desperate uncertainty, this
sitting like Damocles under a sword suspended by a hair, was hard to
bear. What was Dahlia doing? Had she already taken steps? He watched
every post with terror lest it should contain a lawyer's writ. He had
the vaguest ideas about such things ... perhaps they would put him in
prison. To his excited fancy the letters seemed enormous--horrible,
black, menacing, large for all the world to see. What had Aunt Clare
done? His uncle? And then, last of all, had his father any suspicions?

Whether it was the London tailor, or simply the reassuring hand of
custom, his father was certainly not the uncouth person he had seemed
three weeks ago; in fact, Robin was beginning to think him rather
handsome--such muscles and such a chest!--and he really carried himself
very well, and indeed, loose, badly-made clothes suited him rather
well. And then he had changed so in other ways; there was none of that
overwhelming cheerfulness, that terrible hail-fellow-well-met kind of
manner now; he was brief and to the point, he seldom smiled, and surely
it wasn't to be wondered at after the way in which they had treated him
at the family council a week ago.

There had been several occasions lately on which Robin would have liked
to have spoken to his father. He had begun, once, after breakfast, a
halting conversation, but he had only received monosyllables as a
reply--the thing had broken down painfully. And so he went down to his
aunt.

It was her room again, and she was having tea with Uncle Garrett.
Robin remembered the last occasion, only a week ago, when he had made
his confession. He had been afraid of hurting his aunt then, he
remembered. He did not mind very much now ... he saw his aunt and
uncle as two people suddenly grown effete, purposeless, incapable.
They seemed to have c