st courting such a meeting, warned
him to avoid it lest evil should betide. Indeed, so imperious was the
warning, and such were his fears of himself after what had just passed,
that he resolved to leave Penarrow on the next day. Whither he would go
he did not then determine. He might repair to London, and he might even
go upon another cruise--an idea which he had lately dismissed under
Rosamund's earnest intercession. But it was imperative that he should
quit the neighbourhood, and place a distance between Peter Godolphin and
himself until such time as he might take Rosamund to wife. Eight months
or so of exile; but what matter? Better so than that he should be driven
into some deed that would compel him to spend his whole lifetime apart
from her. He would write, and she would understand and approve when he
told her what had passed that day.

The resolve was firmly implanted in him by the time he reached Penarrow,
and he felt himself uplifted by it and by the promise it afforded him
that thus his future happiness would be assured.

Himself he stabled his horse; for of the two grooms he kept, one had
by his leave set out yesterday to spend Christmas in Devon with his
parents, the other had taken a chill and had been ordered to bed that
very day by Sir Oliver, who was considerate with those that served him.
In the dining-room he found supper spread, and a great log fire blazed
in the enormous cowled fire-place, diffusing a pleasant warmth through
the vast room and flickering ruddily upon the trophies of weapons
that adorned the walls, upon the tapestries and the portraits of dead
Tressilians. Hearing his step, old Nicholas entered bearing a great
candle-branch which he set upon the table.

"You'm late, Sir Oliver," said the servant, "and Master Lionel bain't
home yet neither."

Sir Oliver grunted and scowled as he crunched a log and set it sizzling
under his wet heel. He thought of Malpas and cursed Lionel's folly, as,
without a word, he loosed his cloak and flung it on an oaken coffer
by the wall where already he had cast his hat. Then he sat down, and
Nicholas came forward to draw off his boots.

When that was done and the old servant stood up again, Sir Oliver
shortly bade him to serve supper.

"Master Lionel cannot be long now," said he. "And give me to drink,
Nick. 'Tis what I most require."

"I've brewed ee a posset o' canary sack," announced Nicholas; "there'm
no better supping o' a frosty winter's night, S