our in her cheeks; lost, too, all her
superfluity of irritable energy.

"Tell me, at once!"

Having heard, she said nothing; but Lady Valleys noticed with alarm that
over her eyes had come suddenly the peculiar filminess of age.

"Well, what do you advise?" she asked.

Herself tired, and troubled, she was conscious of a quite unwonted
feeling of discouragement before this silent little figure, in the
silent white room. She had never before seen her mother look as if she
heard Defeat passing on its dark wings. And moved by sudden tenderness
for the little frail body that had borne her so long ago, she murmured
almost with surprise:

"Mother, dear!"

"Yes," said Lady Casterley, as if speaking to herself, "the boy saves
things up; he stores his feelings--they burst and sweep him away. First
his passion; now his conscience. There are two men in him; but this will
be the death of one of them." And suddenly turning on her daughter, she
said:

"Did you ever hear about him at Oxford, Gertrude? He broke out once, and
ate husks with the Gadarenes. You never knew. Of course--you never have
known anything of him."

Resentment rose in Lady Valleys, that anyone should knew her son better
than herself; but she lost it again looking at the little figure, and
said, sighing:

"Well?"

Lady Casterley murmured:

"Go away, child; I must think. You say he's to consult' Dennis? Do you
know her address? Ask Barbara when you get back and telephone it to me.
And at her daughter's kiss, she added grimly:

"I shall live to see him in the saddle yet, though I am seventy-eight."

When the sound of her daughter's car had died away, she rang the bell.

"If Lady Valleys rings up, Clifton, don't take the message, but call
me." And seeing that Clifton did not move she added sharply: "Well?"

"There is no bad news of his young lordship's health, I hope?"

"No."

"Forgive me, my lady, but I have had it on my mind for some time to ask
you something."

And the old man raised his hand with a peculiar dignity, seeming to say:
You will excuse me that for the moment I am a human being speaking to a
human being.

"The matter of his attachment," he went on, "is known to me; it has
given me acute anxiety, knowing his lordship as I do, and having
heard him say something singular when he was here in July. I should be
grateful if you would assure--me that there is to be no hitch in his
career, my lady."

The expression on Lady Casterley's f