It had been understood between Rosamund and Dion that he should spend that night in London. He had several things to see to after his long absence, had to visit his tailor, the dentist, the bootmaker, to look out some things in Little Market Street, to have an interview with his banker, et cetera. He would go back to Welsley on the following afternoon. In the evening of that day he dined in De Lorne Gardens with Beatrice and Guy Daventry and his mother, and again, as in Knightsbridge, something was said about the Welsley question. Dion gathered that Rosamund’s devotion to Welsley was no secret in “the family.” The speedy return to Little Market Street was assumed; nevertheless he was certain that his mother, his sister-in-law, and Guy were secretly wondering how Rosamund would be able to endure the departure from Welsley. Beatrice had welcomed him back very quietly, but he had felt more definitely than ever before the strong sympathy which existed between them.

“I quite love Beatrice,” he said to his mother in the jobbed brougham with the high stepping, but slow moving, horse which conveyed them to Queen Anne’s Mansions after the dinner.

“She is worth it,” said Mrs. Leith. “Beatrice says very little, but she means very much.”

“Yes. I wonder—I wonder how much of her meaning I thoroughly understand, mater.”

“Perhaps about five per cent of it, dee-ar,” observed Mrs. Leith in her sweetest voice.

And then she began to talk about Esme Darlington.

That night Dion stayed at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and slept in his old room.

In her room his mother lay awake because she wished to lie awake. In sleep she would have lost the precious sense of her boy’s nearness to her. So she counted the hours and she thanked God; and twice in the night she slipped out into the hall, with her ample dressing-gown folded about her, and she looked at her boy’s coat hanging on its hook, and she listened just outside his door. Once she felt certain she heard his quiet breathing, and then, shutting her eyes, for a moment she was again the girl mother with little Dion.

Little, little Dion! The soldier, burnt and hardened and made wholly a man by South Africa, was still that to his mother, more than ever that since he had been to the war.

That question of Welsley!

Going down in the train next day Dion thought about it a great deal. With his return the old longing, almost an old need it was, to give Rosamund whatever she wanted, or cared at all for, had come to him again. But something fought it, the new longing to dominate and the wish to give Rosamund chances. Besides, how could they possibly live on in Welsley? He could not spend from three to four hours every day in the train. He might get away from London on Fridays and stay at Welsley every week till Monday morning, but that would mean living alone in Little Market Street for four days in the week. If he seemed willing to do that, would Rosamund consent to it?

Another test! He remembered his test before the war.

Mrs. Clarke’s allusion to Welsley had left a rather strong impression upon him. He did not know whether he had a great respect for her, but he knew that he had a great respect for her mind. Like Beattie, but in a very different way, she meant a great deal. He no longer doubted that she liked him very much, though why he honestly did not know. When with her he felt strongly that he was not an interesting man. Dumeny was a beast, he felt sure, but he also felt sure that Dumeny was an interesting man.

Mrs. Clarke’s wild mind attracted something in him. Through her eyes he was able to see the tameness of Welsley, a dear tameness, safe, cozy, full of a very English charm and touched with ancient beauty, but still——! Would the petals of Rosamund ever curl up and go brown at the edges from living at Welsley? No, he could not imagine that ever happening. A dried-up mind she could never have.

He would not see Welsley through the eyes of Mrs. Clarke.

Nevertheless when he got out of the train at Welsley Station, and saw Robin’s pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minor canons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greeting him with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff of professional deference, Mrs. Clarke’s verdict of “stifling” recurred to his mind.

Stamboul and Welsley—Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund!

The dual comparison made him at once see the truth. Stamboul and Welsley were beautiful; each possessed an enticing quality; but the one enticed by its grandiose mystery, by its sharp contrasts of marble stability and matchboard frailty, by its melancholy silences and spaces, by its obscure peace and its dangerous passion; the other by its delightful simplicity, its noble homeliness, its dignity and charm of an old faith and a smiling unworldliness, its harmonies of gray and of green, of stone and verdure, its serenity lifted skywards by many bells.

But at the heart of Stamboul the dust lay thick, and there was dew at the heart of Welsley.

Perhaps green Elis, with its sheep-bells, the eternal voices of its pine trees, the celestial benignity of its Hermes, was more to be desired than either Stamboul or Welsley. But for the moment Welsley was very desirable.

Dion gave his bag to an “outside porter,” and walked to the Precincts with the Archdeacon.

He found Rosamund uplifted and triumphant; Mr. Thrush had finally captivated the Dean, and had been given the “situation” which Rosamund had desired for him. Her joy was almost ebullient. She could talk of nothing else. Mr. Thrush was to be installed on the following Sunday.

“Installed?” said Dion. “Is the Archbishop coming down to conduct the ceremony?”

“No, no! What I mean is that Mr. Thrush will walk in the procession for the first time. Oh, I shall be so nervous! If only he carries the wand as I’ve taught him! I don’t know what Mr. Thrush would do without me. He seems to depend on me for everything now, poor old gentleman.”

“I’m afraid he’ll miss you dreadfully,” said Dion.

“Miss me? When?”

Before he could answer she said quickly:

“Oh, by the way, Dion, while you’ve been away I’ve done something for you.”

“What is it, Rose?”

She was looking gaily mysterious, and almost cunning, but in a delightful way.

“I don’t want you to be bored during your holiday.”

“Bored! Don’t you realize that this is an earthly Paradise for me? You and Robin and peace after South Africa.”

She looked very shrewd.

“That’s all very well, but a man, especially a soldier man, wants sport.”

She laid a strong and happy emphasis on the last word, and then she disclosed the secret. A brother of “the cold douche,” a gentleman farmer who had land some four miles from Welsley, and who was “a great friend” of Rosamund’s—she had met him three times at the organist’s house—hearing of Dion’s arrival, had written to say that he had some partridges which needed “keeping down.” He himself was “laid by” with a bad leg, but he would be very glad if Mr. Leith would “take his chance among the birds” any day, or days, he liked while at Welsley. The gentleman farmer could not offer much, just the ground, most of it stubble, and a decent lot of birds.

“Dear Mrs. Dickinson knew through me how fond of shooting you are. We owe it all to her,” said Rosamund, in conclusion. “I’ve written to thank him, and to say how glad you’ll be.”

“But you must come too,” he said. “You shot in Greece, you must shoot again here.”

“I don’t think I will here,” said Rosamund, confidentially and rather mysteriously.

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t think the Dean would approve of it. And he’s been so bricky about Mr. Thrush that I shouldn’t like to hurt him.”

“I can’t go alone. I shall take Robin then.”

He spoke half-laughingly.

“Robin?”

“Yes, why not? I’m sure he’d love to go.”

“Of course he would. But how could his little legs walk over stubble? He’s not four years old yet.”

“Robin’s got to be Doric. He can’t begin too soon.”

She smiled, then looked at him seriously.

“Dion, do you know that you’ve come back much more Doric than you were when you went out?”

“Have I, Rose?”

“Much more.”

“Do you like me less because of that?”

She blushed faintly.

“No,” she said.

That faint blush made Dion’s heart bound, he scarcely knew why. But he only said soberly:

“I’m glad of that. And now about Robin. You’re right. He can’t walk over stubble with me, but why shouldn’t I stick him on a pony?”

“Oh—a pony! How he would love it!”

“Can’t I get hold of one?”

“But Job Crickendon’s got one!”

“Job Crick— . . . ?”

“Mrs. Dickinson’s brother who’s lending you the partridges. Don’t say another word, Dion. I’ll arrange it all. Robin will be in the seventh heaven.”

“And you must come with us.”

Rosamund was about to speak quickly. Dion saw that. Her eyes shone; she opened her lips. But something, some sudden thought, stopped her. After a minute she said quietly:

“We’ll see.”

And she gave Dion a curious, tender look which he did not quite understand. Surely she was keeping some delicate secret from him, one of those dear secrets which perhaps will never be told, but which are sometimes happily guessed.

Dion could not help seeing that Rosamund eagerly wanted to attach him to Welsley. He felt that she had not honestly and fully faced the prospect of returning to live in London. Her plan—he saw it plainly; the partridge shooting was part of it—was to make Welsley so delightful to him that he would not want to give up the home at Little Cloisters. What was to be done? He disliked, he almost hated, the thought that his return would necessitate an unpleasant change in Rosamund’s life. Yet something within him told him that he ought to be firm. He was obliged to live in London, and therefore it was only natural and right that Rosamund and Robin should live in London too. After this long separation he ought not to have to face a semi-bachelor life; three days of the week at Little Cloisters and four days alone in Little Market Street. He must put Rosamund to the test. That faint blush, which he would not soon forget, made him hope that she would come out of the test triumphantly.

If she did, how splendid it would be. His heart yearned at the thought of a Rosamund submissive to his wish, unselfish out of the depth of—dared he think of it as a new growth of love within her, tending towards a great flowering which would bring a glory into two lives? But if she yielded at once to his wish, without a word of regret, if she took the speedy return to London quite simply as a matter of course, he would feel almost irresistibly inclined to take her in his arms and to say, “No, you shall stay on at Little Cloisters. We’ll manage somehow.” Perhaps he could stand three hours daily in the train. He could read the papers. A man must do that. As well do it in the train as in an arm-chair at home.

But at any rate he would put her to the test. On that he was resolved.

At dinner that night Rosamund told him she had already written to “dear, kind Job Crickendon” about the pony.

“You might shoot on Monday,” she said.

“Right you are. When we hear about the pony we’ll tell Robin.”

“Yes. Not till it’s all delightfully settled. Robin on horseback!”

Her eyes shone.

“I can see him already with a gun in his hand old enough to shoot with you,” she added. “We must bring him up to be a thorough little sportsman; like that Greek boy Dirmikis.”

They talked about Robin’s future till dinner was over. Dion loved their talk, but he could not help seeing that in Rosamund’s forecast town life held no place at all. In everything, or in almost everything, that she said the country held pride of place. There was not one word about Jenkins’s gymnasium, or the Open Air Club with its swimming facilities, or riding in the Park, or fencing at Bernardi’s. Rosamund seemed tacitly to assume that everything which was Doric was connected with country life.

On the following morning she hastened out “to buy riding gaiters for Robin.” She had his “size” with her.

Not a word had been said about Dion’s visit to Mrs. Clarke. Rosamund’s lack of all curiosity in regard to Mrs. Clarke and himself gave him the measure of her faith in him. Few women, he thought, would be able to trust a man so completely. And this trust was the more remarkable because he felt positive that Rosamund distrusted Mrs. Clarke. She had never said so, but he considered that by her conduct she had proved her distrust.

It was a great virtue in Rosamund, that power she had to trust where trust was deserved.

Dear, kind Job Crickendon wrote that Master Robin could ride his pony, Jane, and welcome. The letter arrived on Saturday. Rosamund read it aloud to Dion.

“The people about here are the dearest people I’ve ever come across,” she said. “So different from people in London.”

“Why, what’s the matter with people in London?” asked Dion.

“Oh, I don’t know; they’re more artificial. They think so much about clothes, and hats, and the way their hair’s done.”

“The men!”

“I was talking of the women.”

“But is Job Crickendon a woman?”

“Don’t be absurd, Dion. You know what I mean. The country brings out the best that is in people.”

“That’s a bad look out for me, who’ve lived nearly all my life in London.”

“You would be yourself anywhere. Now about Robin. I’ve got the gaiters. They’re not exactly riding gaiters—they don’t make them for such little boys—but they’ll do beautifully. But I don’t want to tell Robin till Monday morning. You see he’s got a very exciting day before him to-morrow, and I think to know about Monday on top of it might be almost too much for him.”

“But what excitement is there to-morrow?”

She looked at him reproachfully.

“Mr. Thrush!”

“Oh, of course. And is Robin coming to the Cathedral?”

“Yes, for once. It’s a terribly long service for a child, but Robin would break his heart if he didn’t see Mr. Thrush walk in the procession for the first time.”

“Then we won’t tell him till Monday morning. I’ll hire a dog-cart and we can all drive out together.”

Again she gave him the tender look, but she did not then explain what it meant.

That evening they dined with Canon Wilton, who had a surprise in store for them. Esme Darlington had come down to stay with him over Sunday, and to have a glimpse of his dear young friends in Little Cloisters.

The dinner was a delightful one. Mr. Darlington was benignly talkative and full of kindly gossip; Canon Wilton almost beamed upon his guests; after dinner Rosamund sang song after song while the three men listened and looked. She sang her very best for them, and when she was winding a lace shawl about her hair preparatory to the little walk home, Canon Wilton thanked her in a way that brought the blood to her cheeks.

“You’ve made me very happy to-night,” he said finally. And his strong bass voice was softer than usual.

“I’m glad.”

“Not only by your singing,” he added.

She looked at him inquiringly. His eyes had gone to Dion.

“Not only by that.”

And then he spoke almost in a murmur to her.

“He’s come back worth it,” he said. “Good night. God bless you both.”

The following day was made memorable by the “installation” of Mr. Thrush as a verger of Welsley Cathedral.

The Cathedral was not specially crowded for the occasion, but there was a very fair congregation when Rosamund, Dion and Robin (in a sailor suit with wide blue trousers) walked in together through the archway in the rood-screen. One of the old established vergers, a lordly person with a “presence” and the air of a high dignitary, met them as they stepped into the choir, and wanted to put them into stalls; but Rosamund begged for seats in a pew just beyond the lectern, facing the doorway by which the procession came into the choir.

“Robin would be swallowed up in a stall,” she whispered to Dion.

And they both looked down at the little chap tenderly, and met his blue eyes turned confidingly, yet almost anxiously too, up to them. He was wondering about all this whispering with the verger, and hoping that nothing had happened to Mr. Thrush.

They found perfect seats in a pew just beyond the deanery stalls. Far up in the distance above them one bell, the five minutes’ bell, was chiming. Its voice recalled to Rosamund the “ping-ping” of the bell of St. Mary’s Church which had welcomed her in the fog. How much had happened since then! Robin was nestling against her. He sat between her and his father, and was holding his father’s hand. By dividing Dion from her he united her with Dion. She thought of the mystery of the Trinity, and then of their mystery, the mystery of father, mother and child. To-day she felt very happy, and happy in an unusual way. In her happiness she know that, in a sort of under way, she had almost dreaded Dion’s return. She had been so peacefully content, so truly at rest and deeply serene in the life at Welsley with Robin. In her own heart she could not deny that she had loved having her Robin all to herself; and she had loved, too, the long hours of solitude during which, in day-dreams, she had lived the religious life. A great peace had enveloped those months at Welsley. In them she had mysteriously grown into a closer relation with her little son. She had often felt in those months that this mysterious nearness could never have become quite what it had become to her unless she had been left alone with Robin. It was their solitude which had enabled her to concentrate wholly on Robin, and it was surely this exclusive concentration on Robin which had drawn him so very close to her. All the springs of his love had flowed towards her.

She had been just a wee bit frightened about Dion’s return.

And that was why at this moment, when the five minutes’ bell was ringing, she felt so happy. For Dion’s return had not made any difference; or, if it had made a difference, she did not actively regret it. The child’s new adoration of his father had made her care more for Dion, and even more for Robin; for she felt that Robin was unconsciously loving in his father a strength and a nobility which were new in Dion, which had been born far away across the sea. War destroys, and all the time war is destroying it is creating. Robin was holding a little bit of what the South African War had created as he held his father’s hand. For are not the profound truths of the soul conveyed through all its temple?

“Happiness is a mystery,” thought Rosamund.

And then she silently thanked God that this mystery was within herself, and that she felt it in Robin and in Dion.

She looked down at her little son, and as she met his soft and yet ardent eyes,—full of innocent anxiety, and almost of awe, about Mr. Thrush,—she blessed the day when she had decided to marry Dion, when she had renounced certain dreams, when she had taken the advice of the man who was now her friend and had resolved to tread that path of life in which she could have a companion.

Her companion had given her another companion. In the old gray Cathedral, full of the silent voices of men who had prayed and been gathered to their rest long since, Rosamund looked down the way of happiness, and she could not see its end.

The five minutes’ bell stopped and Robin sat up very straight in the pew. The Bishop’s wife proceeded to her stall with a friend. Robin stared reverently, alert for the tribute to Mr. Thrush. Miss Piper glided in sideways, holding her head down as if she were searching for a dropped pin on the pavement. She, too, was an acquaintance of Robin’s, and he whispered to his mother:

“Miss Piper’s come to see Mr. Thrush.”

“Yes, darling.”

What a darling he was in his anxiety for his old friend! She looked at the freckles on the bridge of his little nose and longed to kiss them. This was without doubt the most wonderful day in Robin’s life so far. She looked ahead and saw how many wonderful days for Robin! And over his fair hair she glanced at Dion, and she felt Dion’s thought hand in hand with hers.

A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at work preluding Mr. Thrush. Distant steps sounded on the pavement behind the choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of the Cathedral. The congregation stood up. All this, in Robin’s mind, was for Mr. Thrush. Still holding his father’s hand tightly he joined in the congregation’s movement. The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer. Robin felt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he was standing up. There was a fat red footstool by his left leg. He peeped at his father and whispered:

“May I, Fa?”

Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to the footstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking nobly at the head of the procession.

At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the return stalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, making a dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed with calm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation. Only two picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to their massive stalls. Mr. Thrush was—though not in Robin’s eyes—an ordinary verger. He would not therefore penetrate into the choir. But, mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of the procession. He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full and satisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for the screen. In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holding his wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but—as Rosamund afterwards put it—“almost uplifted.”

Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed. From Mr. Thrush’s shoulders the robe swung with his lordly movements. He reached the entrance. It seemed as if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride and dignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean’s stall. But discipline held him. He stood aside; he came to rest with his wand before him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, he evaporated with his brother vergers.

Rosamund sent a quick look to Dion, a look of subdued and yet bright triumph. Then she glanced down at Robin. She had been scarcely less excited, less strung up, than he. But she had seen the fruit of her rehearsals and now she was satisfied. Robin, she saw, was more than satisfied. His eyes were round with the glory of it all.

That was the happiest Sunday Dion had ever spent, and it was fated to close in a happiness welling up out of the very deeps of the heart.

Canon Wilton and Esme Darlington came in to tea, and Mr. Thrush was entertained at a sumptuous repast in the nursery “between the services.” Robin presided at it with anxious rapture, being now just a little in awe of his faithful old friend. His nurse, who approved of Mr. Thrush, and was much impressed by the fact that after two interviews with the Dean he had been appointed to a post in the Cathedral, sat down to it too; and Rosamund and Dion looked in to congratulate Mr. Thrush, and to tell him how delighted they were with his bearing in the procession and his delicately adroit manipulation of his wand. Mr. Thrush received their earnest congratulations with the quiet dignity of one who felt that they did not spring from exaggeration of sentiment. Like all great artists he knew when he had done well. But when Rosamund and Dion were about to retire, and to leave him with Robin and the nurse to the tea and well-buttered toast, he suddenly emerged into an emotion which did him credit.

“Madame!” He said to Rosamund, in a rather hoarse and tremulous voice.

“Now don’t trouble to get up again, dear Mr. Thrush. Yes, what is it?”

Mr. Thrush looked down steadily at the “round” which glistened on his plate. Something fell upon it.

“Oh, Mr. Thrush——!” began Robin, and paused in dismay, looking up at his mother.

“Madame,” said Mr. Thrush again, still looking at the “round,” “I haven’t felt as I do now since I stood behind my counter just off Hanover Square, respected. Yes,” he said, and his old voice quavered upwards, gaining in strength, “respected by all who knew me. She was with me then, and now she isn’t. But I feel—I feel—I’m respected again.”

Something else fell upon the toast.

“And it’s all your doing, madam. I—all I can say is that I—all I can say——” His voice failed.

Rosamund put her hand on his shoulder.

“There, Mr. Thrush, there! I know, I know just how it is.”

“Madame,” said Mr. Thrush, with quavering emphasis, “one can depend upon you, a man can depend upon you. What you undertake you carry through, even if it’s only the putting on his feet of—of—I never thought to be a verger, never. I never could have looked up to such a thing but for you. But Mr. Dean he said to me, ‘Mr. Thrush, when Mrs. Leith speaks up for a man, even an archbishop has to listen.’”

“Thank you, Mr. Thrush. Robin, give Mr. Thrush the brown sugar. He always likes brown sugar in his tea.”

“It’s more nourishing, madam,” said Mr. Thrush, with a sudden change from emotion to quiet self-confidence. “It does more work for the stomach. A chemist knows.”

“Dear old man!” said Rosamund, when she and Dion were outside in the passage. “To say all that before nurse—it was truly generous.”

And she frankly wiped her eyes. A moment later she added:

“I pray he doesn’t fall back into his little failing!”

She looked at Dion interrogatively. He looked at her, understanding, he believed, the inquiry in her eyes. Before he could say anything the kind and careful voice of Mr. Darlington was heard below, asking:

“Is Mrs. Dion Leith at home?”

Mr. Darlington was delighted with Little Cloisters. He said it had a “flavor which was quite unique,” and was so enthusiastic that Rosamund became almost excited. Dion saw that she counted Mr. Darlington as an ally. When Mr. Darlington’s praises sounded she could not refrain from glancing at her husband, and when at length their guests got up to go “with great reluctance,” she begged them to come and dine on the following night.

Mr. Darlington raised his ragged eyebrows and looked at Canon Wilton.

“I’m by way of going back to town to-morrow afternoon,” he began tentatively.

“Stay another night and let us accept,” said Canon Wilton heartily.

“But I’m dining with dear Lavinia Berkhamstead, one of my oldest friends. It’s not a set dinner, but I should hardly like—”

“For once!” pleaded Rosamund.

Mr. Darlington wavered. He looked round the room and then at Rosamund and Dion.

“It’s most attractive here,” he murmured, “and Lady Berkhamstead lives in the Cromwell Road, at the far end. I wonder—”

“It’s settled!” Rosamund exclaimed. “Dinner at half-past seven. We keep early hours here, and Dion goes shooting to-morrow with Robin and may get sleepy towards ten o’clock.”

After explanations about Robin, Mr. Darlington gracefully yielded. He would wire to dear Lavinia Berkhamstead and explain matters.

As he and Canon Wilton walked back to the Canon’s house he said;

“What dear people those are!”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Canon.

“Happiness has brought out the very best in them both. Leith is a fine young fellow, and she, of course, is unique, a piece of radiance, as her beautiful mother was. It does one good to see such a happy household.”

He gently glowed, and presently added:

“You and I, dear Canon, have missed something.”

After a moment the Canon’s strong voice came gravely out of the winter darkness:

“You think great happiness the noblest education?”

Mr. Darlington began to pull his beard.

“You mean, my dear Wilton——?”

“Do you think the education of happiness is the education most likely to bring out the greatest possibilities of the soul?”

This was the sort of very definite question that Mr. Darlington preferred to get away from if possible, and he was just preparing to “hedge,” when, fortunately, they ran into the Dean, and the conversation deviated to a discussion concerning the effect the pursuit of scientific research was likely to have upon religious belief.

After supper that evening—supper instead of dinner on Sundays was the general rule in Welsley—Dion lit his pipe. It had been a very happy day. He wished the happiness to last till sleep came to Rosamund and to him; nevertheless he was resolved to take a risk, and to take it now before they went to bed, while they still had two quiet hours before them. He looked at Rosamund and reluctance surged up in him, but he beat it back. Something told him that he had been allowed to come back from South Africa in order that he might build firm foundations. The perfect family life must be set upon rock. He meant to get through to the rock if possible. Rosamund and he were beginning again. Now surely was the day of salvation if he played the man, the man instead of merely the lover.

“This has been one of the happiest days of my life,” he said.

He was standing by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doing some embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-colored ground in her capable hands.

“I’m so thankful you like Welsley,” she said.

“Won’t you hate leaving Welsley?” he asked.

Rosamund went on quietly working for a moment. Perhaps she bent a little lower over the embroidery.

“I’ve made a great many friends here,” she said at length, “and——”

She paused.

“Yes—do tell me, Rose.”

“There’s something here that I care for very much.”

“Is it the atmosphere of religion? There’s a great deal here that suggests the religious life.”

“Yes; it’s what I care for.”

“I was almost afraid of meeting you here when I came back, Rose. I remembered what you had once told me, that you had had a great longing to enter the religious life. I was half afraid that, living here all alone with Robin, you might have become—I don’t know exactly how to put it—become cloistral. I didn’t want to find you a sort of nun when I came back.”

He spoke with a gentle lightness.

“It might have been so, mightn’t it?”

She remembered her dreams in the walled-in garden almost guiltily.

“No,” she said steadily—and as she spoke she felt as if she were firmly putting those dreams behind her forever. “Motherhood changes a woman more than men can ever know.”

“I—I know it’s all right. Then you won’t hate me for taking you both back to Little Market Street in a few days?”

He saw the color deepen in her face. For an instant she went on working. Then she put the work down, sat back in the low chair, and looked up at him.

“No, of course we must go back. And I was very happy in Little Market Street.”

And then quickly, before he could say anything, she began to recall the pleasant details of their life in Westminster, dwelling upon every household joy, and everything that though “Londony” had been delightful. Having conquered, with an effort which had cost her more than even Dion knew, a terrible reluctance she gave herself to her own generous impulse with enthusiasm. Rosamund could not do things by halves. She might obstinately refrain from treading a path, but if once she had set her feet on it she hurried eagerly along it. Something to-night had made her decide on treading the path of unselfishness, of generosity. When Dion lit his pipe she had not known she was going to tread it. It seemed to her almost as if she had found herself upon the path without knowing how she had got there. Now without hesitation she went forward.

“It was delightful in Westminster,” she concluded, “and it will be delightful there again.”

“And all your friends here? And Mr. Thrush?”

“I don’t know what Mr. Thrush will do,” she said, with a change to deep gravity.

The two lines showed in her pure forehead.

“I’m so afraid that without me he will fall back. But perhaps I can run down now and then just for the day to keep him up to his promise, poor dear old man.”

“And your friends?”

“Oh, well—of course I shall miss them. But I suppose there is always something to miss. There must be a crumpled rose leaf. I am far more fortunate than almost any woman I know.”

Dion put down his pipe.

“I simply can’t do it,” he said.

“What?”

“Take you away from here. It seems your right place. You love it; Robin loves it. What’s to be done? Shall I run up and down?”

“You can’t. It’s too far.”

“I have to read the papers somewhere. Why not in the train?”

“Three hours or more! It’s impossible. If only Welsley were nearer London! But, then, it wouldn’t be Welsley.”

“Now I know you’ll go I can’t take you away.”

“Did you—what did you think I should do?”

“How could I tell?”

He sat down and took her hands.

“Rose, you’ve made this the happiest day of my life.”

“Do you mean because——?”

She stopped. Her face became very grave, almost severe. She looked at him, but he felt that she was really looking inward upon herself. When at last he let go her hands she said:

“Dion, you are very different from what you were when you went to the war. If I seem different, too, it’s because of that, I think.”

“War changes women, perhaps, as well as men,” he said tenderly.

They sat by the fire in the quiet old room and talked of the future and of all the stages of Robin: as schoolboy, as youth, as budding undergraduate, as man.

“Perhaps he’ll be a soldier-man as his father has been,” said Rosamund.

“Do you wish it?”

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she said:

“Yes, if it helps him as I think it has helped you. I expect when men go to fight for their country they go, perhaps without knowing it, to fight just for themselves.”

“I believe everything we do for others, without any thought of ourselves, we do for ourselves,” he said, very seriously.

“Altruism! But then I ought to live in London for you, and you in Welsley for me.”

They both laughed. Nothing had been absolutely decided; and yet it seemed as if through that laughter a decision had been reached about everything really important.