The new moon brightened above the rim of the opposite hill, and touched the river below with silver reflections. On the grass banks sloping away beneath the terrace gardens, sheets of bluebells shone almost whitely on the grass. The silent house rose against the dark woods, whitened also here and there by the blossom of wild cherry-trees.

Lady Mary stepped from the open French windows of the drawing-room into the still, scented air of the April night. She stood leaning against the stone balcony, and gazing at the wonderful panorama of the valley and overlapping hills; where the little river threaded its untroubled course between daisied meadows and old orchards and red crumbling banks.

A broad-shouldered figure appeared in the window, and a man's step crunched the gravel of the path which Lady Mary had crossed.

"For once I have escaped, you see," she said, without turning round. "They will not venture into the night air. Sometimes I think they will drive me mad—Isabella and Georgina."

"Mary!" cried a shrill voice from the drawing-room, "how can you be so imprudent! John, how can you allow her!"

John stepped back to the window. "It is very mild," he said. "Lady
Mary likes the air."

There was a note of authority in his tone which somehow impressed Lady Belstone, who withdrew, muttering to herself, into the warm lamplight of the drawing-room.

Perhaps the two old ladies were to be pitied, too, as they sat together, but forlorn, sincerely shocked and uneasy at their sister-in-law's behaviour.

"Dear Timothy not dead three months, and she sitting out there in the night air, as he would never have permitted, talking and laughing; yes, I actually hear her laughing—with John."

"There is no telling what she may do now," said Miss Crewys, gloomily.

"I declare it is a judgment, Georgina. Why did Timothy choose to trust a perfect stranger—even though John is a cousin—with the care of his wife and son, and his estate, rather than his own sisters?"

"It was a gentleman's work," said Miss Crewys.

"Gentleman's fiddlesticks! Couldn't old Crawley have done it? I should hope he is as good a lawyer as young John any day," said Lady Belstone, tossing her head. "But I have often noticed that people will trust any chance stranger with the property they leave behind, rather than those they know best."

"Isabella," said Miss Crewys, "blame not the dead, and especially on a moonlight night. It makes my blood run cold."

"I am blaming nobody, Georgina; but I will say that if poor Timothy thought proper to leave everything else in the hands of young John, he might have considered that you and I had a better right to the Dower House than poor dear Mary, who, of course, must live with her son."

"I am far from wishing or intending to leave my home here, Isabella," said Miss Crewys. "It is very different in your case. You forfeited the position of daughter of the house when you married. But I have always occupied my old place, and my old room."

This was a sore subject. On Lady Belstone's return as a widow, to the home of her fathers, she had been torn with anxiety and indecision regarding her choice of a sleeping apartment. Sentiment dictated her return to her former bedroom; but she was convinced that the married state required a domicile on the first floor. Etiquette prevailed, and she descended; but the eighty-year-old legs of Miss Crewys still climbed the nursery staircase, and she revenged herself for her inferior status by insisting, in defiance of old associations, that her maid should occupy the room next to her own, which her sister had abandoned.

"For my part, I can sleep in one room as well as another, provided it be comfortable and appropriate," said Lady Belstone, with dignity. "There are very pleasant rooms in the Dower House, and our great-aunts managed to live there in comfort, and yet keep an eye on their nephew here, as I have always been told. I don't know why we should object to doing the same. You have never tried being mistress of your own house, Georgina, but I can assure you it has its advantages; and I found them out as a married woman."

"A married woman has her husband to look after her," said Miss Crewys.
"It is very different for a widow."

"You are for ever throwing my widowhood in my teeth, Georgina," said Lady Belstone, plaintively. "It is not my fault that I am a widow. I did not murder the admiral."

"I don't say you did, Isabella," said Georgina, grimly; "but he only survived his marriage six months."

"It is nice to be silent sometimes," said Lady Mary.

"Does that mean that I am to go away?" said John, "or merely that I am not to speak to you?"

She laughed a little. "Neither. It means that I am tired of being scolded."

"I have wondered now and then," said John, deliberately, "why you put up with it?"

"I suppose—because I can't help it," she said, startled.

"You are a free agent."

"You mean that I could go away?" she said, in a low voice. "But there is only one place I should care to go to now."

"To South Africa?"

"You always understand," she said gratefully.

"Supposing this—this ghastly war should not be over as soon as we all hope," he said, rather huskily, "I could escort you myself, in a few weeks' time, to the Cape. Or—or arrange for your going earlier if you desired, and if I could not get away. Probably you would get no further than Cape Town; but it might be easier for you waiting there—than here."

"I shall thank you, and bless you always, for thinking of it," she interrupted, softly; "but there is something—that I never told anybody."

He waited.

"After Peter had the news of his father's death," said Lady Mary, with a sob in her throat, "you did not know that he—he telegraphed to me, from Madeira. He foresaw immediately, I suppose, whither my foolish impulses would lead me; and he asked me—I should rather say he ordered me—under no circumstances whatever to follow him out to South Africa."

John remembered the doctor's warning, and said nothing.

"So, you see—I can't go," said Lady Mary.

There was a pause.

"I am bound to say," said John, presently, "that, in Peter's place, I should not have liked my mother, or any woman I loved, to come out to the seat of war. He showed only a proper care for you in forbidding it. Perhaps I am less courageous than he, in thinking more of the present benefit you would derive from the voyage and the change of scene, than of the perils and discomforts which might await you, for aught we can foretell now, at the end of it. Peter certainly showed judgment in telegraphing to you."

"Do you really think so? That it was care for me that made him do it?" she asked. A distant doubtful joy sounded in her voice. "Somehow I never thought of that. I remembered his old dislike of being followed about, or taken care of, or—or spied upon, as he used to call it."

"Boys just turning into men are often sensitive on those points," said
John, heedful always of the doctor's warning.

"It is odd I did not see the telegram in that light," said poor Lady
Mary. "I must read it again."

She spoke as hopefully as though she had not read it already a hundred times over, trying to read loving meanings, that were not there, between the curt and peremptory lines.

"It is not odd," thought John to himself; "it is because you knew him too well;" and he wondered whether his explanation of Peter's action were charitable, or merely unscrupulous.

But Lady Mary was not really deceived; only very grateful to the man who was so tender of heart, so tactful of speech, as to make it seem even faintly possible that she had misjudged her boy.

She said to herself that parents were often unreasonable, expecting impossibilities, in their wild desire for perfection in their offspring. An outsider, being unprejudiced by anxiety, could judge more fairly. John found that the telegram, which had almost broken her heart, was reasonable and justified; nay, even that it displayed a dutiful regard for her safety and comfort, of which no one but a stranger could possibly have suspected Peter. She was grateful to John. It was a relief and joy to feel that it was she who was to blame, and not Peter, whose heart was in the right place, after all. And yet, though John was so clever and had such an experience of human nature, it was the doctor who had put the key into his hands, which presently unlocked Lady Mary's confidence.

"You mustn't think, John, that I don't understand what it will be like later, when Peter comes of age. Of course this house will be his, and he is not the kind of young man to be tied to his mother's apron-string. He always wanted to be independent."

"It is human nature," said John.

"I am not blind to his faults," said Lady Mary, humbly, "though they all think so. It is of little use to try and hide them from you, who will see them for yourself directly my darling comes back. I pray God it may be soon. Of course he is spoilt; but I am to blame, because I made him my idol."

"An only son is always more or less spoilt," said John. He remembered his own boyhood, and smiled sardonically in the darkness. "He will grow out of it. He will come back a man after this experience."

"Yes, yes, and he will want to live his life, and I—I shall have to learn to do without him, I know," she said. "I must learn while he is away to—to depend on myself. It is not likely that—that a woman of my age should have much in common with a manly boy like Peter. Sometimes I wonder whether I really understand my boy at all."

"It is my belief," said John, "that no generation is in perfect touch with another. Each stands on a different rung of the ladder of Time. You may stoop to lend a helping hand to the younger, or reach upwards to take a farewell of the older. But there must be a looking down or a looking up. No face-to-face talk is possible except upon the same level. No real and true comradeship. The very word implies a marching together, under the same circumstances, to a common goal; and how can we, who have to be the commanding officers of the young, be their true companions?" he said, lightly and cheerfully.

"I dare say I have expected impossibilities," said Lady Mary, as though reproaching herself. "It comforts me to think so. But I have had time to reflect on many things since—February." She paused. "I don't deny I have tried to make plans for the future. But there are these days to be lived through first—until he comes home."

"I was going to propose," said John, "that, if agreeable to you, I should spend my summer and autumn holiday here, instead of going, as usual, to Switzerland."

"I should be only too glad," she said, in tones of awakened interest.
"But surely—it would be very dull for you?"

"Not at all. There is a great deal to be done, and in accordance with my trust I am bound to set about it," said John. "I propose to spend the next few days in examining the reports of the surveys that have already been made, and in judging of their accuracy for myself. When I return here later, I could have the work begun, and then for some time I could superintend matters personally, which is always a good thing."

"Do you mean—the woods?" she asked. "I know they have been neglected. Sir Timothy would never have a tree cut down; but they are so wild and beautiful."

"There are hundreds of pounds' worth of timber perishing for want of attention. I am responsible for it all until Peter comes of age," said John, "as I am for the rest of his inheritance. It is part of my trust to hand over to him his house and property in the best order I can, according to my own judgment. I know something of forestry," he added, simply; "you know I was not bred a Cockney. I was to have been a Hertfordshire squire, on a small scale, had not circumstances necessitated the letting of my father's house when he died."

"But it will be yours again some day?"

"No," said John, quietly; "it had to be sold—afterwards."

He gave no further explanation, but Lady Mary recollected instantly the abuse that had been showered on his mother, by her sisters-in-law, when John was reported to have sacrificed his patrimony to pay her debts.

"I rather agree with you about the woods," she said. "It vexes me always to see a beautiful young tree, that should be straight and strong, turned into a twisted dwarf, in the shade of the overgrowth and the overcrowding. The woodman will be delighted; he is always grumbling."

"It is not only the woods. There is the house."

"I suppose it wants repairing?" said Lady Mary. "Hadn't that better be put off till Peter comes home?"

"I cannot neglect my trust," said John, gravely; "besides," he added, "the state of the roof is simply appalling. Many of the beams are actually rotten. Then there are the drains; they are on a system that should not be tolerated in these days. Nothing has been done for over sixty years, and I can hardly say how long before."

"Won't it all cost a great deal of money?" said Lady Mary.

"A good deal; but there is a very large sum of money lying idle, which, as the will directs, may be applied to the general improvement of the house and estate during Peter's minority; but over which he is to have no control, should it remain unspent, until he comes of age. That is to say, it will then—or what is left of it—be invested with the rest of his capital, which is all strictly tied up. So, as old Crawley says, it will relieve Peter's income in the future, if we spend what is necessary now, according to our powers, in putting his house and estate in order. It would have to be done sooner or later, most assuredly. Sir Timothy, as you must know," said John, gently, "did not spend above a third of his actual income; and, so far as Mr. Crawley knows, spent nothing at all on repairs, beyond jobs to the village carpenter and mason."

"I did not know," said Lady Mary. "He always told me we were very badly off—for our position. I know nothing of business. I did not attend much to Mr. Crawley's explanations at the time."

"You were unable to attend to him then," said John; "but now, I think, you should understand the exact position of affairs. Surely my cousins must have talked it over?"

"Isabella and Georgina never talk business before me. You forget I am still a child in their eyes," she said, smiling. "I gathered that they were disappointed poor Timothy had left them nothing, and that they thought I had too much; that is all."

"Their way of looking at it is scarcely in accordance with justice," said John, shrugging his shoulders. "They each have ten thousand pounds left to them by their father in settlement. This was to return to the estate if they died unmarried or childless. You have two thousand a year and the Dower House for your life; but you forfeit both if you re-marry."

"Of course," said Lady Mary, indifferently. "I suppose that is the usual thing?"

"Not quite, especially when your personal property is so small."

"I didn't know I had any personal property."

"About five hundred pounds a year; perhaps a little more."

"From the Setouns!" she cried.

"From your father. Surely you must have known?"

Lady Mary was silent a moment. "No; I didn't know," she said presently. "It doesn't matter now, but Timothy never told me. I thought I hadn't a farthing in the world. He never mentioned money matters to me at all." Then she laughed faintly. "I could have lived all by myself in a cottage in Scotland, without being beholden to anybody—on five hundred pounds a year, couldn't I?"

"There is no reason you should not have a cottage in Scotland now, if you fancy one," said John, cheerfully.

"The only memories I have in the world, outside my life in this place, are of my childhood at home," she said.

John suddenly realized how very, very limited her experiences had been, and wondered less at the almost childish simplicity which characterized her, and which in no way marred her natural graciousness and dignity. Lady Mary did not observe his silence, because her own thoughts were busy with a scene which memory had painted for her, and far away from the moonlit valley of the Youle. She saw a tall, narrow, turreted building against a ruddy sunset sky; a bare ridge of hills crowned sparsely with ragged Scotch firs; a sea of heather which had seemed boundless to a childish imagination.

"I could not go back to Scotland now," she said, with that little wistful-sounding, patient sob which moved John to such pity that he could scarce contain himself; "but some day, when I am free—when nobody wants me."

"London is the only place worth living in just now, whilst we are in such terrible anxiety," he said boldly. "At least there are the papers and telegrams all day long, and none of this dreary, long waiting between the posts; and there are other things—to distract one's attention, and keep up one's courage."

"I do not know what Isabella and Georgina would say," said Lady Mary.

"But you—would you not care to come?"

"Oh!" she said, half sobbing, "it is because I am afraid of caring too much. Life seems to call so loudly to me now and then; as though I were tired of sitting alone, and looking up the valley and down the valley. I know it all by heart. It would be fresh life; the stir, the movement; other people, fresh ideas, beautiful new things to see. But, indeed, you must not tempt me." There was an accent of yearning in her tone, a hint of eager anticipation, as of a good time coming; a dream postponed, which she would nevertheless be willing one day to enjoy. "I mustn't go anywhere; I couldn't—until my boy comes home, if he ever comes home," she added, under her breath.

"But when he comes home safe and sound, as please God he may," said John, cheerfully, "why, then you have a great deal of lost time to make up."

"Ah, yes!" said Lady Mary, and again that wistful note of longing sounded. "I have thought sometimes I would not like to die before I have seen my birthplace once more. And there is—Italy," she said, as though the one word conveyed every vision of earthly beauty which mortal could desire to behold—as, indeed, it does. And again she added, "But I don't know what my sisters-in-law would say. It would be against all the traditions."

"Surely Lady Belstone, at least, must be less absurdly narrow-minded," said John, almost impatiently.

"Shall I tell you the history of her marriage?" said Lady Mary.

Her pretty laugh rang out softly in the darkness, and thrilled John's heart, and shocked yet further the old ladies who sat within, straining their ears for the sound of returning footsteps.

"It took place about forty years ago or less. A cousin of her mother's, Sir William Belstone, came to spend a few days here. I believe the poor man invited himself, because he happened to be staying in the neighbourhood. He was a gallant old sailor, and very polite to both his cousins; and one day Isabella interpreted his compliments into a proposal of marriage. Georgina has given me to understand that no one was ever more astounded and terrified than the admiral when he found himself engaged to Isabella. But apparently he was a chivalrous old gentleman, and would not disappoint her. It is really rather a sad little story, because he died of heart disease very soon after the marriage. Old Mrs. Ash, the housekeeper, always declares her mistress came home even more old-maidish in her ways than she went away, and that she quarrelled with the poor admiral from morning till night. Perhaps that is why she has never lightened her garb of woe. And she makes my life a burden to me because I won't wear a cap. Ah! how heartless it all sounds, and yet how ridiculous! Dear Cousin John, haven't I bored you? Let us go in."

With characteristic energy John Crewys set in hand the repairs which he had declared to be so necessary.

The late squire had apparently been as well aware of the neglected state of his ancestral halls as of his tangled and overgrown woods; but he had also, it seemed, been unable to make up his mind to take any steps towards amending the condition of either—or to part with his ever-increasing balance at his bankers'.

Sir Timothy had carried both his obstinacy and his dullness into his business affairs.

The family solicitor, Mr. Crawley, backed up the new administrator with all his might.

"Over sixty thousand pounds uninvested, and lying idle at the bank," he said, lifting his hands and eyes, "and one long, miserable grumbling over the expense of keeping up Barracombe. One good tenant after another lost because the landlord would keep nothing in repair; gardener after gardener leaving for want of a shilling increase in weekly wages. In case Sir Peter should turn out to resemble his father, we had best not let the grass grow under our feet, Mr. Crewys," said the shrewd gentleman, chuckling, "but take full advantage of the powers entrusted to you for the next two years and a quarter. Sir Peter, luckily, does not come of age until October, 1902."

"That is just what I intend to do," said John.

"Odd, isn't it," said the lawyer, confidentially, "how often a man will put unlimited power into the hands of a comparative stranger, and leave his own son tied hand and foot? Not a penny of all this capital will Sir Peter ever have the handling of. Perhaps a good job too. Oh, dear! when I look at the state of his affairs in general, I feel positively guilty, and ashamed to have had even the nominal management of them. But what could a man do under the circumstances? He paid for my advice, and then acted directly contrary to it, and thought he had done a clever thing, and outwitted his own lawyer. But now we shall get things a bit straight, I hope. What about buying Speccot Farm, Mr. Crewys? It's been our Naboth's vineyard for many a day; but we haggled over the price, and couldn't make up our minds to give what the farmer wants. He'll have to sell in the end, you know; but I suppose he could hold out a few years longer if we don't give way."

"He's been to me already," said John. "The price he asked is no doubt a bit above its proper value; but it's accommodation land, and it would be disappointing if it slipped through our fingers. I propose to offer him pretty nearly what he asks."

"He'll take it," said Mr. Crawley, with satisfaction. "I could never make Sir Timothy see that it wouldn't pay the fellow to turn out unless he got something over and above the value of his mortgages."

"The next thing I want you to arrange is the purchase of those twenty acres of rough pasture and gorse, right in the centre of the property," said John, "rented by the man who lives outside Youlestone, at what they call Pott's farm, for his wretched, half-starved beasts to graze upon. He's saved us the trouble of exterminating the rabbits there, I notice."

"He's an inveterate poacher. A good thing to give him no further excuse to hang about the place. What do you propose to do?"

"Compensate him, burn the gorse, cut the bracken, and plant larch. There are enough picturesque commons on the top of the hill, where the soil is poor, and land is cheap. We don't want them in the valley. Now I propose to give our minds to the restoration of the house, the drains, the stables, and the home farm. Here are my estimates."

Though Mr. Crawley was so loyal a supporter of the regent of Barracombe, yet John's projected improvements were far too thorough-going to gain the approval of the pottering old retainers of the Crewys family, though they were unable to question his knowledge or his judgment.

"I telled 'im tu du things by the littles," said the woodman, who was kept at work marking trees and saplings as he had never worked before; though John was generous of help, and liberal of pay. "But lard, he bain't one tu covet nobody's gude advice. I was vair terrified tu zee arl he knowed about the drees. The squoire 'ee wur like a babe unbarn beside 'un. He lukes me straight in the eyes, and 'Luke,' sezzee, 'us 'a' got tu git the place in vamous arder vur young Zur Peter,' sezzee, 'An' I be responsible, and danged but what 'a'll du't,' 'ee zays. An' I touched my yead, zo, and I zays, 'Very gude, zur,' 'a zays. 'An' zo 'twill be, yu may depend on't.'"

Perhaps the unwonted stir and bustle, the coming and going of John Crewys, the confusion of workmen, the novel interest of renovating and restoring the old house, helped to brace and fortify Lady Mary during the months which followed; months, nevertheless, of suspense and anxiety, which reduced her almost to a shadow of her former self.

For Peter's career in South Africa proved an adventurous one.

He had the good luck to distinguish himself in a skirmish almost immediately after his arrival, and to win not only the approval of his noble relative and commander, but his commission. His next exploit, however, ended rather disastrously, and Peter found himself a prisoner in the now historic bird-cage at Pretoria, where he spent a dreary, restless, and perhaps not wholly unprofitable time, in the society of men greatly his superior in soldierly and other qualities.

John feared that his mother's resolution not to follow her boy must inevitably be broken when the news of his capture reached Barracombe; but perhaps Peter's letters had repeated the peremptory injunctions of his telegram, for she never proposed to take the journey to South Africa.

The wave of relief and thankfulness that swept over the country, when the release of the imprisoned officers became known, restored not a little of Lady Mary's natural courage and spirits. She became more hopeful about her son, and more interested daily in the beautifying and restoration of his house.

She said little in her letters to Peter of the work at Barracombe, for John advised her that the boy would probably hardly understand the necessity for it, and she herself was doubtful of Peter's approval even if he had understood. She had too much intelligence to be doubtful of John's wisdom, or of Mr. Crawley's zeal for his interest.

The letters she received were few and scanty, for Peter was but a poor correspondent, and he made little comment on the explanatory letter regarding his father's will which John and Mr. Crawley thought proper to send him. The solicitor was justly indignant at Sir Peter's neglect to reply to this carefully thought-out and faultlessly indited epistle.

"He is just a chip of the old block," said Mr. Crawley.

But his mother divined that Peter was partly offended at his own utter exclusion from any share of responsibility, and partly too much occupied to give much attention to any matter outside his soldiering. She said to herself that he was really too young to be troubled with business; and she began to believe, as the work at Barracombe advanced, that the results of so much planning and forethought must please him, after all. The consolation of working in his interests was delightful to her. Her days were filling almost miraculously, as it seemed to her, with new occupations, fresh hopes, and happier ideas, than the idle dreaming which was all that had hitherto been permitted to her. John desired her help, or her suggestions, at every turn, and constantly consulted her taste. Her artistic instinct for decoration was hardly less strong than his own, though infinitely less cultivated. He sent her the most engrossing and delightful books to repair the omission, and he brought her plans and drawings, which he begged her to copy for him. The days which had hung so heavily on her hands were scarcely long enough.

The careful restoration of the banqueting-hall necessitated new curtains and chair-covers. Lady Mary looked doubtfully at John when this matter had been decided, and then at the upholstery of the drawing-rooms facing the south terrace.

The faded magenta silk, tarnished gilded mirrors, and gold-starred wall-paper which decorated these apartments had offended her eye for years. John laughed at her hesitation, and advised her to consult her sisters-in-law on the subject; and this settled the question.

"They would choose bottle-green" she said, in horror; and she salved her conscience by paying for the redecoration of the drawing-rooms out of her own pocket.

John discovered that Lady Mary had never drawn a cheque in her life, and that Mr. Crawley's lessons in the management of her own affairs filled her with as much awe as amusement.

* * * * *

So the old order changed and gave place to the new at Barracombe; and the summer grew to winter, and winter to summer again; and Peter did not return, as he might, with the corps in which he had the honour to serve.

Want of energy was not one of his defects; he was a strong, hardy young man, a fine horseman and a good shot, and eager to gain distinction for himself. He passed into a fresh corps of newly raised Yeomanry, and went through the Winter Campaign of 1901, from April to September, without a scratch. His mother implored him to come home; but Peter's letters were contemptuous of danger. If he were to be shot, plenty of better fellows than he had been done for, he wrote; and coming home to go to Oxford, or whatever his guardian might be pleased to order him to do, was not at all in his line, when he was really wanted elsewhere.

To do him justice, he had no idea how boastfully his letters read; he had not the art of expressing himself on paper, and he was always in a hurry. The moments when he was moved by a vague affection for his home, or his mother, were seldom the actual moments which he devoted to correspondence; and the passing ideas of the moment were all Peter knew how to convey.

Lady Mary could not but be aware of her son's complete independence of her, but the realization of it no longer filled her with such dismay as formerly. Her outlook upon life was widening insensibly. The young soldier's luck deserted him at last. Barely six weeks before the declaration of peace, Peter was wounded at Rooiwal. The War Office, and the account of the action in the newspapers, reported his injuries as severe; but a telegram from Peter himself brought relief, and even rejoicing, to Barracombe—

"Shot in the arm. Doing splendidly. Invalided home. Sailing as soon as doctor allows."