r
induced in him, even as evil done is different to, and greater than,
evil suffered. Morality may be relative only and conventional. Honour,
for all persons of a certain standing and breeding, remains absolute.
And it was precisely of his own honour that he had deprived himself.
Not only in body, but in character, he was henceforth monstrous. For a
while Richard had remained very still, looking at this thing into which
he had made himself as though it were external and physically visible
to him.

Then, suddenly, he had reached out his hand for his mother's letter. A
decision of great moment was impending. He would know what she had to
say before finally making that decision. He wondered bitterly, grimly,
whether her words would plunge him yet deeper in this abyss of
self-hatred and self-contempt.

MY DARLING,"--she wrote,--"I am foolishly glad to learn that you are
back at Naples. It gives me comfort to know you are even thus much
nearer home and in a country where I too have traveled and of which I
retain many dear and delightful recollections. You may be surprised,
perhaps, to see the unaccustomed address upon my note-paper and may
wonder what has made me guilty of deserting my post. Now, since the
worst of it is certainly over, I may tell you that my health has failed
a good deal of late. Nothing of a really serious nature--you need not
be alarmed about me. But I had got into a rather weak and unworthy
state, from which it became very desirable I should rouse myself.
Selfishness is insidious, but none the less reprehensible because it
takes the apparently innocent form of sitting in a chair with one's
eyes shut! However, that best of men, John Knott, brought very bracing
influences to bear on me, convincing me of sin--in the gentlest way in
the world--by means of Honoria St. Quentin. And so I picked myself up,
dear Dickie,--picked the whole of myself up, as I hope, always saving
and excepting my self-indulgent inertia,--and came away here to
Ormiston. At first, I confess, I felt very much like a dog at a fair,
or the proverbial mummy at a feast. But they all bore with me in the
plenty of their kindness, and, in the last week, I have banished the
mummy and trained the scared dog to altogether polite and pretty
behaviour. Till I came back to it, I hardly realised how truly I loved
this place. How should it be otherwise? I met your father first here
after his third term at Eton. I remember he snubbed me roundly. I