e was not very much said. Joseph, who was rather more tired than
everybody else, made no attempt to bring the lamp, and no one asked for
it. They sat in the waning light, which had less of day and more of
night in it in that room than anywhere else, and made a very slight
repast in a much subdued way, very tired, and with little interest in
the cold chicken. Once Mrs. Warrender made a remark about the evening.
"How dark it is! I think, Theo, if you don't do something soon the trees
will crush the house." "I don't see what the trees have to do with it,"
he answered with irritation; "I have always begged you not to wait for
me when I was late." "But you were not late, dear Theo," said Chatty,
with a certain timidity. "I suppose I ought to know whether I was late
or not," he replied. And the ladies were silent, and the salad was
handed round. Very suitable for a summer evening, but yet on the whole
a depressing meal.

When they rose from the table Mrs. Warrender asked Theo to take a turn
with her, which he did with great reluctance, fearing to be questioned.
But she had more discretion than to begin, at least on that subject. She
told him that if he did not particularly want her, she had made up her
mind to go away. "Chatty will be dull without her sister. I think she
wants a little change, and for that matter, so do I. And you don't want
us, Theo."

"That is a hard thing to say, mother."

"I do not mean any blame. I know that the time is critical for you too,
my dear boy. That is why I ask, do you wish me to remain? but I don't
think you do."

He did not answer for a full minute. Then, "No," he said, "I don't think
I do." They were walking slowly round the house, by the same path which
they had taken together when the father was lying dead, and before there
had been question of Lady Markland in the young man's life. "Mother," he
said after another interval, "I ought to tell you, perhaps. I know nothing
about myself or what I am going to do; it all depends on some one else.
Minnie would moralise finely on that, if she were to hear it. Things
have come to this, that I know nothing about what may happen to-morrow.
I may start off for the end of the world,--that is the most likely, I
think. I can't go on living as I am doing now. I may go to--where? I
don't know and I don't care much. If I were a Nimrod, as I ought to have
been, I should have gone to Africa for big game. But it will probably be
Greece or something convent