. But I hoped we should all be going away in a little time. It
isn't so."

"I never quite understood why you hoped that."

"It was plain enough."

"How?"

"I thought I should have found something to do that would have enabled
us to live in better style. I'd had a plan."

"What plan?"

"It's fallen through."

"But what plan was it?"

"I thought I should be able to set up a sort of broad church chapel. I
had a promise."

Her voice was rich with indignation. "And she has betrayed you?"

"No," he said, "I have betrayed her."

Lady Ella's face showed them still at cross purposes. He looked down
again and frowned. "I can't do that chapel business," he said. "I've had
to let her down. I've got to let you all down. There's no help for it.
It isn't the way. I can't have anything to do with Lady Sunderbund and
her chapel."

"But," Lady Ella was still perplexed.

"It's too great a sacrifice."

"Of us?"

"No, of myself. I can't get into her pulpit and do as she wants and keep
my conscience. It's been a horrible riddle for me. It means plunging
into all this poverty for good. But I can't work with her, Ella. She's
impossible."

"You mean--you're going to break with Lady Sunderbund?"

"I must."

"Then, Teddy!"--she was a woman groping for flight amidst intolerable
perplexities--"why did you ever leave the church?"

"Because I have ceased to believe--"

"But had it nothing to do with Lady Sunderbund?"

He stared at her in astonishment.

"If it means breaking with that woman," she said.

"You mean," he said, beginning for the first time to comprehend her,
"that you don't mind the poverty?"

"Poverty!" she cried. "I cared for nothing but the disgrace."

"Disgrace?"

"Oh, never mind, Ted! If it isn't true, if I've been dreaming...."

Instead of a woman stunned by a life sentence of poverty, he saw his
wife rejoicing as if she had heard good news.

Their minds were held for a minute by the sound of some one knocking
at the house door; one of the girls opened the door, there was a brief
hubbub in the passage and then they heard a cry of "Eleanor!" through
the folding doors.

"There's Eleanor," he said, realizing he had told his wife nothing of
the encounter in Hyde Park.

They heard Eleanor's clear voice: "Where's Mummy? Or Daddy?" and then:
"Can't stay now, dears. Where's Mummy or Daddy?"

"I ought to have told you," said Scrope quickly. "I met Eleanor in the
Park. By accident. She's come up une