Mrs. Bolton was very much upset by what had happened at the Courtlands'. An unwonted and irksome sense of responsibility oppressed her. She discussed the matter with Miss Henderson and made Caylesham come to see her—Miss Pattie Henderson, who knew all about how Sophy's letter had reached her mother's hands; and Caylesham, whom Mrs. Bolton had made a party to the joke. It did not seem so good a joke now. She and Pattie were both frightened when they saw to what their pleasantry had led. Little Sophy's suffering was not pleasant to think of, and there was an uncomfortable uncertainty about the manner of Harriet's death. A scheme may prove too successful sometimes. Caylesham had warned Mrs. Bolton that she was playing with dangerous tools. He was not now inclined to let her down too easily, nor to put the kindest interpretation on the searchings of her conscience.

"You always time your fits of morality so well," he observed cynically. "I don't suppose poor old Tom's amusing company just now, and he's certainly deuced hard up."

Mrs. Bolton looked a very plausible picture of injured innocence, but of course there was something in what Frank Caylesham said; there generally was, though it might not be what you would be best pleased to find. Tom was not lively nor inclined for gaiety, and he had just made a composition with his creditors. On the other hand, Miss Henderson was in funds (having completed her negotiations with the Parmenter family), and had suggested a winter on the Riviera, with herself for hostess. There are, fortunately, moments when the good and the pleasant coincide; the worst of it is that such happy harmonies are apt to come rather late in the day.

"It's all different now that woman's gone," observed Mrs. Bolton. "It's the children now, Frank."

"Supposing it is, why am I to be dragged into it?"

"We must get him to go back to them."

Various feelings combined to make Mrs. Bolton very earnest.

"He wants to stay here, does he?"

"No, he hates being here now. Yes, he does. He only comes because he's got nobody else to speak to. And he's in awful dumps all the time. It's not very cheerful for me."

"I daresay not, Flora. But why doesn't he go back then?"

Mrs. Bolton had been moving about the room restlessly. Her back was to Caylesham as she answered:

"He won't. He says he can't. He says——"

Caylesham threw a glance at her, his brows raised.

"What does he say, Flora?"

"Oh, it's nonsense—and he needn't say it to me, anyhow. It really isn't particularly pleasant for me. Oh, well, then, he says he's not fit to go near them." She turned round to him; there was a flush on her face. "Such nonsense!" she ended impatiently.

Caylesham pulled his moustache, and smiled reflectively.

"I suppose it might take him like that," he observed, with an impartial air.

"Oh, I know you're only laughing at me! But I tell you, I don't like it, Frank."

"These little incidents are—well, incidental, Flora. Innocent children, you know! And I shouldn't be surprised if he even made excuses for Harriet now?"

"No, he doesn't do that. It's the children. Stop smiling like that, will you?"

"Certainly, my dear Flora. My smile was a pure oversight."

"It was all I could do to get him to go to the funeral. Do you think she killed herself, Frank?"

"I've not the least intention of examining the question. What can it matter?"

Mrs. Bolton shrugged her shoulders impatiently. It did seem to her to matter, but she would not let Caylesham think that it mattered much. She returned to her point about the children.

"He's miserable thinking about them, and yet he won't go near them. I call it idiotic."

"So do I. But then they aren't our children."

"Well, I'm not going to stand his saying it again and again to me."

"I really agree. There can't be any reason for saying such a thing more than once."

She broke into a vexed laugh.

"When you've had all the fun you can get out of me, perhaps you'll begin to help me. You see, I want it settled. I want to be off to Monte with Pattie."

"I see. You want to go with Pattie and——?"

Mrs. Bolton shook her head.

"Just you and Pattie?"

"She's going to stand it to me: I haven't got a farthing. And, I say, Frank, he ought to go back to those poor little wretches now. You can make him do it if you like, you know."

"I? Well, I'm an odd sort of party for such a job."

"Not a bit. He'll listen to you just because—well, because——"

"I haven't spared your feelings, Flora, don't mind mine."

"Because he knows you don't talk humbug or cant."

"You're being complimentary after all—or at any rate you're meaning to be. And you'd never see him again?"

"He'll never want to see me." She was facing Caylesham now. "I've been fond of poor old Tom. Come, you know I have? Say that for me."

"Yes, I know you have. I've reproved you for it myself."

"But he'll not want to see me—and soon I shan't want to see him either."

She looked a little distressed for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders with a laugh.

"That's the way of the world."

"Of part of it," Caylesham murmured as he lit a cigar.

But he was really sorry for Mrs. Bolton. Notwithstanding a notable mixture of motives, in which the condition of her purse and the opportunity of going to the Riviera figured largely, she was grieved at the way in which her friendship with Tom was ending—grieved that it must end, and hurt that Tom should desire to have it ended. She had always suffered from this unfortunate tendency to kindly emotions which the exigencies of her position did not permit her to indulge. Indeed it was very likely the kindly emotions which had originally produced the position. That did not make the matter any better; the ultimate incongruity was none the less undesirable. With his indifference to accepted codes, Caylesham thought it rather lamentable too. Still she did want, above all things, to go to the Riviera with Pattie Henderson. One must compromise with life, and it was not clear that she was getting the worst of the bargain.

With Flora Bolton set aside (and of course she had no reasonable title to consideration), the case seemed a simple one to Caylesham, and his mission an obvious utterance of common sense. He could not enter fully into Tom Courtland's mind. Tom was not naturally a lawless man; desperation had made him break loose. The bygone desperation was forgotten now in pity for his children and for the woman whom, after all, he had once loved; and he looked with shame on the thing he had done, attributing to it all the results which Harriet's fury had engrafted on it. Broken in fortune and in career, broken too in self-respect, he had been likely to drift on in a life which he had come to abhor. He felt his presence an outrage on his children. If the death of his wife had seemed to save him from a due punishment, here was a penalty different, but hardly less severe. While he was in this mood Caylesham was the best man to carry the message to him. The only chance with Tom was to treat what he had done as natural, but to insist that the sequence of events was utterly unexpected and essentially unconnected with it. To urge the gravity of his offence would have been to make reparation and atonement impossible. Caylesham took a very strong and simple line. He declined to discuss the state of Tom's conscience, or the blackness of Tom's mind, or even the whiteness of the minds of the children. Everybody was very much alike, or would be in a few years anyhow, and Tom was not to be an ass. The line of argument was not exalted, but it was adapted to the needs of the case.

"My dear chap, if you come to that, what man is fit to look his children in the face?" he asked impatiently.

But then it occurred to him that he was idealising—a thing he hated.

"Not that children aren't often wicked little beggars themselves," he added cheerfully. "They steal and lie like anything, and torment one another devilishly. I know I did things as a boy that I'd kick any grown man for doing, and so did my brothers and sisters. I tell you what it is, Tom, the devil's there all the time; he shows himself in different ways—that's all."

Tom could not swallow this gospel; he would give up neither his own iniquity nor the halo of purity to which his mind clung amid the sordid ruin of his life and home.

"If I could pull straight——" he murmured despairingly.

"Why shouldn't you? You're getting on in life, you know, after all."

"They—they guess something about it, I expect, Frank. It's not pleasant for a man to be ashamed before his own children. And Miss Bligh—I thought she looked at me very queerly at the funeral."

"You'll find they'll be as nice as possible to you. The children won't understand anything, and Suzette's sure to be on your side. Women always are, you know. They're not naturally moral—we've imposed it on them, and they always like to get an excuse for approving of the other thing."

Tom grew savage.

"I know what I've done, but anyhow I'm glad I don't think as you do."

"Never mind my thoughts, old chap. You go home to your kids," said Caylesham cheerfully.

He was very good-humoured over the matter; neither all the unnecessary fuss nor Tom's aspersions on his own character and views disturbed him in the least; and he did not leave Tom until he had obtained the assurance that he desired. This given, he went off to his club, thanking heaven that he was quit of a very tiresome business. If he did his bad deeds without misgiving, he did his good without arrogance; perhaps they were not numerous enough to give that feeling a plausible excuse for emergence.

"It's all right," he wrote to Mrs. Bolton in reporting his success. "I made him promise not to be an ass. So you can go off with Pattie with a mind free of care. Good luck to you, and lots of plunder!"

The immoral friendliness of this wish for her success quite touched Mrs. Bolton.

"Frank's a really good-hearted fellow," she told Miss Henderson as she settled herself in the train and started on her journey, the fortunes of which it is not necessary to follow.

For days Lucy and little Vera had crept fearfully through the silent house, knowing that a dreadful thing had happened, not allowed to put questions, and hardly daring to speculate about it between themselves. When Sophy began to be about again, pale and shaken, with the bandage still round her head, she took the lead as she was wont to do, and her bolder mind fastened on the change in the situation. There was no need to be afraid any more; that was the great fact which came home to her, and which she proclaimed to her sisters. It might be proper to move quietly and talk low for a little while, but it was a tribute to what was becoming, not a sign of terror or a precaution against danger. It was Sophy too who ventured to question Suzette, and to elicit instructions as to their future conduct. They were to think very kindly of mamma and love her memory, said Suzette, but they were not to talk about her to papa when he came back, because that would distress him. And they were not to ask him why he had gone away, or where he had been. Of course he had had business; and, anyhow, little girls ought not to be inquisitive. A question remained in Sophy's mind, and was even canvassed in private schoolroom consultations. What about that portentous word which had been whispered through the household—what about the divorce? None of them found courage to ask that, or perhaps they had pity on poor Suzette Bligh, who was so terribly uncomfortable under their questioning. At any rate nothing more was heard about the divorce. Since it had appeared to mean that papa was to go away, and since he was coming back now, presumably it had been put on the shelf somehow. All the same, their sharp instincts told them that their father would not have come back unless their mother had died, and that he was coming back now—well, in a sort of disgrace; that was how they put it in their thoughts.

A committee consisting of Kate Raymore, Janet Selford, and John Fanshaw (a trustee under the Courtland marriage settlement, and so possessing a status), had sat to consider Suzette Bligh's position. Suzette loved the children, and it would be sad if she had to leave them; moreover she was homeless, and a fixed salary would be welcome to her. Lastly—and on this point Janet Selford laid stress—she was not exactly a girl; she was just on thirty. John nodded agreement, adding that nobody outside of an asylum could connect scandal with the name of Suzette Bligh. So it was decided that she should stay, for the present at all events, in the capacity of companion or governess. The children wondered to find Suzette so gently radiant and affectionate one evening. She had not told them of the doubt which had arisen, nor how great a thing it was to her to stay. They had never doubted that she would stay with them now.

It was late one afternoon when Tom Courtland slunk home. He had sent no word of his coming, because he did not know till the last minute whether he would have courage to come. Then he had made the plunge, given up his room at the club, packed his luggage, and left it to be called for. But the plunge was very difficult to him—so that his weak will would not have faced it unless that other door at Mrs. Bolton's had been firmly shut in his face. He was uncomfortable before the man who let him in; he was wretchedly apprehensive of Suzette Bligh and of the children. He needed—very badly needed—Caylesham at his elbow again, to tell him "not to be an ass." But Caylesham had gone back to employments more congenial than he ever professed to find works of benevolence. Tom had to endure alone, and he could find no comfort. Against Harriet he could have made a case—a very good case in the judgment of half the world. But he seemed to have no excuse to offer to the little girls, nor any plea to meet the wondering disapprobation of Suzette Bligh.

He was told that the children were in the schoolroom with Suzette, and thither he bent his steps, going slowly and indecisively. He stopped outside the door and listened. He could hear Suzette's mild voice; apparently she was reading to them, for nothing except the continuous flow of her words was audible, and in conversation she was not so loquacious as that. Well, he must go in; perhaps it would be all right when once the ice was broken. He opened the door and stood on the threshold, blushing like a schoolboy.

"Well, my dears, here I am," he said. "I've come home."

He caught Suzette's eye. She was blushing too, blushing a very vivid pink—rather a foolish pink somehow. He felt that both he and Suzette were looking very silly. For quite a long time, as it seemed, he looked at Suzette before he looked at the little girls. After that there was, or seemed to be, another long silence while the little girls looked first at him, then at Suzette, then at one another. Tom stood there through it all—in the doorway, blushing.

The next moment all the three were upon him, clinging to his hands and his coat, kissing him, crying out their gladness in little excited exclamations, the two elder taking care to give Vera a fair chance to get at him, Vera insisting that the chance was not a fair one, all the three dragging him to an armchair, and sitting him down in it. Two of them got on his knees, and Lucy stood by his side with her arm round his neck.

"My dears!" Tom muttered, and found he could say no more.

His eyes met Suzette Bligh's. She was standing by the table, looking on, and her eyes were misty.

"See how they love you, Mr. Courtland!" she said.

Yes! And he had forsaken them, and the bandage was about Sophy's head.

"You won't go away again, will you?" implored Lucy.

"No, I shan't go away again."

"And Suzette'll stay too, won't she?" urged Vera.

"I hope she will, indeed!"

"You will, Suzette?"

"Yes, dear."

"We shall be happy," said Sophy softly, with a note of wonder in her voice.

It really seemed strange to have the prospect of being happy—permanently, comfortably, without fear; the prospect of happiness, not snatched at intervals, not broken by terror, but secure and without apprehension.

Tom Courtland pressed his little children to him. Where were the reproaches he had imagined, where the shame he had feared? They were annihilated by love and swallowed up in gladness.

"We do love you so!" whispered Lucy.

Vera actually screamed in happiness.

"Oh, Vera!" said Suzette, rather shocked.

That set them all laughing, the little girls, Tom, presently even Suzette herself. They were all laughing, though none of them could have told exactly why. Their joy bubbled over in mirth, and the sound of gladness was in the house. Tom Courtland held his head up and was his own man again. Here was something to live for, and something to show that even his broken life had not been lived in vain. The ghosts of the past were there; he could not forget them. But the clasp of the warm little arms which encircled him would keep their chilling touch away from his heart. Freed from torments that he had not deserved, rescued from pleasures that he had not enjoyed, he turned eagerly to the delights of his home which could now be his. His glad children and kindly Suzette were a picture very precious in his eyes. Here were golden links by which the fragments of his life could be bound together, though the fractures must always show—even as the scar would show always on Sophy's brow, however much her lips might smile or her eyes sparkle beneath it.

They were roused by a voice from the door.

"It's not hard to tell where you all are! Why, I heard you at the bottom of the stairs! What a hullabaloo!"

John Fanshaw's bulky figure stood there, solid and bowed with weight and his growing years. He looked on the scene—on the happy little folk in their gloomy black frocks—with a kindly smile, and the mock reproof of his tone hid more tenderness than he cared to show.

"Papa's come back—back to stay!" they cried exultantly. "Isn't that splendid, Mr. Fanshaw?"

"I hoped I should find you here, Tom; but I came to call on Miss Bligh."

"I hope you'll always find her here too," said Tom.

Suzette was flattered, and fell to blushing again. She was acutely grateful to anybody who wanted her. She took such a desire as a free and lavish gift of kindness, never making out any reason which could account for it.

"I'm only too happy to stay if—if I can be of any use," she murmured.

John sat down and made one of the party. They all chattered cheerfully till the time grew late. Sophy, still treated as an invalid, had to go to bed. She kissed John, who held her closely for a moment; then threw herself in Tom's arms, and could hardly be persuaded to let him go.

"I shall write to Mr. Imason and tell him you've come back," she whispered as a great secret. "He was so kind to Lucy and Vera when—— You know, papa?"

Tom passed his hand over her flaxen hair.

"Sleep quietly, darling," he said.

For quiet and peace were possible now.

There had been no expectation that Tom would be home to dinner; and though Suzette assured him that something could easily be prepared (and that homely sort of attention was new and pleasant to Tom), he accepted John Fanshaw's invitation to take pot-luck with him. They walked off together, rather silent, each full of his own thoughts. They did not speak until they had almost reached John's door.

"That's the sort of sight that makes a man wish he had children," said John slowly.

"I've often wished I had none. Poor Harriet!"

"But you're glad of them now?"

"Why, I've nothing else! It just makes the difference to life." He paused a moment, and then broke out: "And they've nothing but love for me. Not a word, not a thought of reproach! Just because I've never been cruel to them, whatever else I've been! Poor little beggars! We can't keep like that when we grow up. We're too fond of our grievances—eh?"

John looked at him for a moment, but said nothing. They went into the house in renewed silence. It seemed very large, empty, and dreary.

"Your wife not back yet? I heard she was staying with the Imasons."

"She's there still. I don't know when she's coming back."

"Rather dull for you, isn't it? You know you always depended on her a lot."

John made no answer, but led the way into his study. He gave Tom an evening paper, and began to open his letters. But his thoughts were not on the letters. They were occupied with what he had seen that afternoon and with the words which had fallen from Tom Courtland's lips. The children forgave with that fine free forgiveness which will not even recognise the need for itself or the existence of any fault towards which it should be exercised. It is there that forgiveness rises to and is merged in love. But when people grow up, Tom had said, they are too fond of their grievances. John had been very fond of his grievance. It was a fine large one—about the largest any man could have, everybody must admit that; and John had declined to belittle it or to shear off an inch or two of its imposing stature. All it demanded he had given. But had he? What about Frank Caylesham's money? Had it not demanded there something which he had refused? But he had given all it asked so far as the sinner who had caused it was concerned. Against her he had nursed and cosseted it; for its sake he had made his home desolate and starved his heart. Aye, he had always depended on Christine. Tom was right. But because of his grievance he had put her from him. He was fond of his grievance indeed! If Tom's children had been old enough to recognise the true value and preciousness of a big grievance, they would never have received Tom as they had that afternoon; they would have made him feel what he had been guilty of. He would have been made to feel it handsomely before he was forgiven. Children were different, as Tom Courtland said.

John got up and poked the fire fiercely.

"The house is beastly cold!" he grumbled.

"Ah, it wouldn't be if Mrs. John was at home!" laughed Tom. "She always looks after the fire, doesn't she?"

John Fanshaw bitterly envied him his peace and happiness. He forgot how hardly they had been achieved. The vision of the afternoon was before his eyes, and he declared that fate was too kind to Tom. A heavy dulness was over his face, and a forlorn puzzled look in his eyes. He must have done right, he must be doing right! How could a self-respecting man do otherwise? And yet he was so desolate, so starved of human love, in the end so full of longing for Christine—for her gracious presence and her dainty little ways.

With an effort he collected his thoughts from these wanderings, and began to read his letters. Tom was still occupied with his paper and his cigar; but he looked up at the sound of an "Ah!" which escaped from John's lips. John had come on a letter which set his thoughts going again—a letter from Sibylla. She upbraided him playfully for not having come down to see them and Christine.

"I'm sure Christine must be hurt with you, though she's much too proud to say so. We want to keep her over Christmas. Will you come as soon as you can and stay over Christmas and as long as possible? I've not told her I'm asking you, so that she mayn't be disappointed if you can't come."

There was diplomacy in Sibylla's letter, since she knew the state of the case far better than her references to Christine implied. But John was not aware of this. His attention was fixed only on the invitation, and on the circumstances in which it came. He could not go to Milldean and take his grievance with him; it was too big and obtrusive for other people's houses—it could flourish properly only in a domestic tÊte-À-tÊte. So he must stay at home. He sighed as he laid down the letter. Then his fingers wandered irresolutely to it again as he looked across at Tom Courtland, who had now ceased reading and was smoking with a quiet smile on his face.

"Anything up, old fellow?" asked Tom, noting the gravity of his expression.

"No. It's only from Mrs. Imason, asking me to go down there at Christmas."

"You go!" counselled Tom. "Better than bringing your wife back here."

There was a third course—the course favoured by the grievance. John did not speak of it, but it was present in his thoughts. He shook his head impatiently, and began to talk of general topics; but all the evening Sibylla's letter was in his mind, ranging itself side by side with the scene which he had witnessed at Tom Courtland's.

The gloomy idol he had set up in his heart was not yet cast down. But the little hands of the children had given its pedestal a shake.