ge, retrospective mood which
had come over him this afternoon led his thoughts into strange paths, and
he found himself wondering if, after all, it had not been in his power to
make her happier. Her dryad-like face, with its sweet, elusive smile,
seemed to peer at him now wistfully out of the forest, and suddenly a new
and startling thought rose up within him--after six and thirty years.
Perhaps she had belonged in the forest! Perhaps, because he had sought to
cage her, she had pined and died! The thought gave Hilary unwonted pain,
and he strove to put it away from him; but memories such as these, once
aroused, are not easily set at rest, and he bent his head as he recalled
(with a new and significant pathos) those hopeless and pitiful flights
into the wilds she loved.

Now Austen had gone. Was there a Law behind these actions of mother and
son which he had persisted in denouncing as vagaries? Austen was a man: a
man, Hilary could not but see, who had the respect of his fellows, whose
judgment and talents were becoming recognized. Was it possible that he,
Hilary Vane, could have been one of those referred to by the Preacher?
During the week which had passed since Austen's departure the house in
Hanover Street had been haunted for Hilary. The going of his son had not
left a mere void,--that would have been pain enough. Ghosts were there,
ghosts which he could but dimly feel and see, and more than once, in the
long evenings, he had taken to the streets to avoid them.

In that week Hilary's fear of meeting his son in the street or in the
passages of the building had been equalled by a yearning to see him.
Every morning, at the hour Austen was wont to drive Pepper to the Ripton
House stables across the square, Hilary had contrived to be standing near
his windows--a little back, and out of sight. And--stranger still!--he
had turned from these glimpses to the reports of the Honourable Brush
Bascom and his associates with a distaste he had never felt before.

With some such thoughts as these Hilary Vane turned into the last
straight stretch of the avenue that led to Fairview House, with its red
and white awnings gleaming in the morning sun. On the lawn, against a
white and purple mass of lilacs and the darker background of pines, a
straight and infinitely graceful figure in white caught his eye and held
it. He recognized Victoria. She wore a simple summer gown, the soft
outline of its flounces mingling subtly with the white c