longer belong to the child, but the
child even, driven from her side he knew not how, was lost to the
mother; they had set out unconsciously each upon a new and separate way.
Geoff was not grieved, scarcely even startled, when she told him on the
second evening that she was going to town next day --for shopping, she
said. He did not ask to be taken with her, nor thought of asking; it
appeared to Geoff that he had known all along that she would go. Lady
Markland proposed to him that he should pay Mrs. Warrender a visit, and
he consented, not asking why. He drove in with her to the station at
Highcombe, where Chatty met him, and took leave of his mother, strangely,
in a curious, dreamy way, as if he were not sure what he was doing. To
be sure it was a parting of little importance. She was going to town,
to do some shopping, and in less than a week she was to be back. It
had never happened before, which gave the incident a distinguishing
character, that was all. But she seated herself on the other side of the
railway carriage and did not keep him in her eye till she could see him
no more. And though she cried under her veil some tears which were salt
and bitter, yet in her heart there was a feeling of relief--of relief to
have parted with her boy! Could such a thing be possible? Geoff on his
side went back with Chatty very quietly, saying little. He sat down in a
corner of the drawing-room, with a book, his face twitching more than
usual, his eyes puckered up tight: but afterwards became, as Chatty
said, "very companionable," which was indeed the chief quality of this
little forsaken boy.

It was not till nearly a week after that Lady Markland came back. She
arrived suddenly, one evening, with Theo, unexpected, unannounced. Dinner
was over, and they had all gone into the garden in the warm summer
twilight when these unlooked-for visitors came. Lady Markland was clad
from head to foot in gray, the colour of the twilight, she who had been
for so long all black. Theo followed her closely, in light attire also,
and with a face all alight with happiness, more bright than in all his
life his face had ever been before. He took Geoff by the shoulders with
a sort of tender roughness, which was almost like an embrace. "Is that
you, my old boy?" he said, with an unsteady laugh, pushing him into his
mother's arms. And then there was some crying and kissing, and Geoff
heard it said that they had thought it better so, to avoid all fuss a