Caroline was married at the beginning of the year. The Abbey was full of guests, as for Beatrix's wedding, but there was no occasion to find other rooms elsewhere; there had not been such a demand for invitations. Caroline had wanted a very quiet wedding. She was not going to marry into a more or less exalted position, as Beatrix had done, and was going to begin, and continue, her married life in a very modest way. But her father had wanted no difference made between her and Beatrix, and she had given way.

It must be confessed, however, that her wedding was not the bright success that Beatrix's had been. It was, at the outset, one of those social functions which were to be dropped out of Caroline's life altogether. Maurice was not calculated to shine in them, in any capacity, least of all as a leading figure. He was as well dressed as he ever could be—Worthing had seen to that—but he did not look at ease in his wedding garments, and his almost bucolic air was heightened rather than diminished by them. Also he looked extraordinarily young; and a man who depends on the virile force within him, and lacks most of the graces of youth, does not show to any advantage until the years have passed over his head. The contrast between him and Caroline, in the full flower of her young grace and beauty, was so marked as scarcely to escape the notice of the most sympathetic, and there were many there who were far from being sympathetic with a marriage which in their view was nothing short of a misalliance. Nobody expressed this view to Grafton, but those who held it showed themselves rather too careful not to. Its atmosphere was all around him, and he felt more uncomfortable and doubtful than at any time since he had brought himself to consent.

When the bride and bridegroom had driven off he was feeling so depressed that he determined to escape his duties as host for a time, and slip out for a walk. There was nearly an hour of winter twilight left, and a sharp frost. A fast walk would brace him in mind and body.

He went upstairs to change his clothes. He could get down by a staircase at the other end of the corridor and escape from the house without being seen, except perhaps by some of the servants.

As he slipped into a tweed suit and put on a pair of thick-soled boots his unease of mind deepened. His black hour was upon him. Only at the death of his wife sixteen years before had he felt the heavy weight upon his mind that he felt now. But for that one big grief he had dwelt in the sunshine of prosperity, pleasure, the liking of his friends, the love of his children. The upset of mind he had endured over Beatrix a year before had been by far the biggest that had troubled him for all those long years, and that had never brought him the black cloud that was settling on him now.

The marked difference in atmosphere between Caroline's wedding and Beatrix's was not the cause of his mood, though it heightened, and perhaps had induced it. He had tested and examined himself so searchingly during the past weeks that the plainly-to-be-noticed disapproval of others could not now affect his own conviction that he had taken the right course. All of those who had a right to express their opinions had had their opportunity of expressing them directly to him, and he had answered them. And he had satisfied himself, by many signs and tokens, of Maurice's essential fitness for the great trust he had reposed in him. He already felt an affection for the boy; that was the reward he had gained from sinking his own prejudices, and making a strong effort to see him with Caroline's eyes. It was a big reward. It had removed from him all the discomfort of feeling that she was wasting her fine gifts upon one who could give her no adequate return for them. He had come to see that she was fulfilling herself in this marriage, and that the expression of her true and tender nature would flower beautifully under it, though its flowering might be hidden from the world at large.

Nor had he had to make the adjustments of his own attitude that had troubled him when Beatrix had given her love. Caroline had come to be more to him than ever before, because he had been able to enter with her into the deeper places of her heart. That reward he had also gained from his self-suppression. She trusted him and loved him, and had shown it as she had always shown it, without once causing him to feel that he was ever so little shouldered out of his place in her heart.

And yet the sense of irreparable loss was there in this black hour, and was growing deeper every moment. He hurried on his changing so as to get away by himself and keep it at bay by fast movement; and, if he could, to fight it down and regain his accustomed equanimity.

It was the sense of change and passing in his own life that had descended upon him so heavily as Caroline had driven off from her old home, with her face set towards her new one. With parents happily married, where family life is welded by strong affection and community of taste and pursuit, there comes this sense of breaking up when their children begin to leave them. They are no longer the centre round which their children's lives revolve. Mothers feel it most when their boys go to school, fathers when their daughters marry. But the family life goes on; though not in its fullest measure. Grafton's had come to an end. He might have Barbara with him for a time when she had finished her education. Young George would only occasionally be at home, for years to come. Miss Waterhouse would be there. That was all that would remain of the happy years in which he had had them all around him.

Caroline would be near him, but no longer in his home, to surround him with all the devotion that had brought him such solace since the death of her mother. He had not known how much he depended upon her until Beatrix's marriage. She had been almost everything to him since, and had kept him from the sense of loss that was weighing on him now, when Beatrix had left him. But it was the loss of both of them that he was feeling, and the end and finish of the longest and one of the best chapters of his life. What was his life to be in the future? It was that question to which he wanted to find some sort of answer before he faced again the people who had come to celebrate the opening of a new chapter for Caroline, but the close of one for him.

When he was ready to leave his room he paused before the portrait of his young wife hanging over the mantelpiece. He had never wanted her more than he did now, to tread the downward slope with him.

As he went along the corridor, the door of a room on the other side of it opened, and Ella Carruthers, who was staying in the house, came out. She also was dressed in tweeds and walking boots, and as they looked at one another she laughed and said: "I see we both want the same thing—to get away for a bit and think about it."

His first feeling was one of annoyance. Caught like that, he could not suggest that he should go his way and she hers. But he wanted no companionship in his efforts to face what he had to face.

But when he had said lightly: "We'll go for a sharp walk together, but don't let anybody else see us," he became conscious that just this companionship would be good for him.

She had been so much with his daughters that she was almost like one of his own family. She was only three or four years older than Caroline. During the disturbance of mind he had undergone at the time of Beatrix's engagement to Lassigny she had given him more help than anybody—more help even than Caroline, because she had a wider knowledge and experience; and she had shown wisdom with Beatrix too, who had listened to her when she would have listened to nobody else. If anybody could do so, she would help him over his dark hour.

So they set out together through the park, making for unfrequented roads and lanes, and walking fast.

Neither of them spoke for some time. Then Ella said: "I'm afraid it hasn't been much of a success; but I think you were right all the same."

"Right in what?" he asked. "In having a pukka wedding?"

"I didn't mean that, but I think you were right there, too. It showed, anyhow, that you weren't ashamed of it."

This was pretty plain speaking. But he had encouraged that from her. And she had already discussed Maurice with him.

"It was rather tiresome to have them all turning up their noses at him," he said. "It reflected on Caroline, and I felt it because of that. For myself I don't mind much. I took my own line long ago, and I've no reason to regret it. If you've done what you think is right, you're not much affected by the opinion of other people, especially when they don't judge by your standards. Do you think my poor little Caroline noticed it?"

"Noticed the sort of atmosphere of disapproval, do you mean?"

"She can hardly have helped noticing it. Did she mind?"

"I expect she would rather not have had him subjected to that test. It's the worst he'll ever have to go through, poor boy. But she would look upon it in the same way as you do—only more so. She would know that they couldn't judge him as she does. I expect it would make her feel all the more tender towards him. What he is is for her alone."

"Then I don't think we need worry. And it's all over for her now. All over for me, too. Ella, I'm feeling it damnably. I came out to get myself straight. As you've come with me you must allow me to be purely egoistic. I want to go back rather happier than I came out. You helped me before; I believe you can help me now."

"I'll try," she said. "I expect I know something about it."

"I don't think you can know much, my dear. It will be a good many years yet before you have to face the fact that you're getting old."

She laughed lightly. "If that's what's the matter with you," she said, "I can sweep the trouble away altogether. You've always seemed to me about as young as any of us, and you'll go on being young till you die. It isn't a question of years. I thought it was the reaction of the last few months."

"Well, I suppose it is. But what do you mean by that?"

"I think you've behaved most awfully well," she said. "I've admired you very much for it, and I'm glad I can say so."

"Oh, you mean about accepting Maurice. But that's all over long ago. It was a bit difficult at first, but it hasn't been difficult lately. No, it isn't that, except that the late performance hasn't cheered me up exactly. I think I should feel just the same if Caroline had married somebody that all the world would have accepted as suited to her. It has brought my life as I've lived it to an end. That's what's the matter with me, Ella. I've got to rearrange it for myself, and it's rather a bleak prospect."

"Tell me about it," she said. "I don't quite see."

"Well, I suppose most men of my sort, who have work that suits them, and enough money to get all the pleasures they want, are more or less content with that when they get to my age, even if their children mean a good deal to them. But I'm not. Family life has been the best thing I've had, and I don't know what I shall do without it."

"You haven't lost them all, have you? And when you come down here you'll have Caroline almost as much as before."

"Ah, but it won't be the same. That came simply rushing over me as she drove away. She's been the dearest daughter to me. She's centred herself on me. I suppose she's made me selfish. She's given me all that she could of what her mother would have given me. I've never valued her half enough. I think I loved B better than her when they were both children. Not much better, but perhaps enough to make her feel the difference. That's rather a bad memory just now. I may have done it in ways that I haven't meant to, that may have hurt her."

"I'm sure you needn't trouble yourself about that, dear Mr. Grafton," she said, with some earnestness. "She is devoted to you, in a way she couldn't be if you hadn't been just as much to her as she has to you. It has been lovely to see you together. And what you've been able to do lately has cemented it all as nothing else could have done. I know she's felt it deeply, because she's told me so. She's full of gratitude and love for you. And I think you've earned it all. Oh, please don't trouble yourself in that way. I'm sure you needn't."

"Well, perhaps I needn't. There can't have been much wrong, or she wouldn't have been able to give me what she has. I don't think it's that, either, that is descending on me now. Things are right between me and all my children. I've only lost what every man must lose when he gets to my age; only, like Mrs. Gummidge, I feel it more. They have been my chosen companions. They've kept me young between them. It isn't only that I love them. I've liked doing things with them better than with anybody else. I get on with other men as well as most people. Perhaps before the children grew up I enjoyed myself going about and amusing myself with my friends as much as any man could. But for the last few years, and especially since we came to live here, I've liked being with them better than anybody—I never knew how much better until just now. When I've been up in London I've been looking forward all the week to getting down here again. I tell you, it's a bleak prospect to go back to the sort of life I found pleasant enough ten years ago. I think I've outgrown it. It's just passing the time. There's nothing left to make it worth while."

She was silent for a time, and then said: "You know, your case and mine aren't so very different. Until you all came to live here, and took me in so happily, I was really only passing the time. It has made a lot of difference to me getting all the companionship and affection I have had here. I feel the break up of your family, too. It has been a delightful bit of life, and I feel it hasn't lasted half long enough. Still, it isn't really all over, though it has altered. Caroline will be here, and Barbara by and bye. Beatrix and Bunting, too, sometimes; and I count for a little, don't I, Mr. Grafton? You've let me think myself almost one of your family."

"Oh, my dear child, you've made yourself part of it as nobody else has. I couldn't talk like this to anybody but you—not even to the Dragon, who has an indulgent eye for my weaknesses. It is weak, I suppose, to grouse as I'm doing. The children are happy, and I've helped to make them so. It's only myself I'm thinking of, and I shan't inflict my troubles on anybody after this. You've caught me just at the time."

"I'm very glad I have," she said. "Perhaps I can do something for you in return for all you've done for me. One of the last things Caroline said to me, upstairs, was, 'Take care of my darling old Daddy, while I'm away.' So you see she was thinking of you, left alone, up to the last; and she treats me as one of the family. I know I can't take her place, or B's; but I can do something if you'll let me. You've been awfully good to me. You've always given me help when I've wanted it, and it hasn't been altogether easy to behave myself as a responsible person, when I'm still young enough to prefer to be looked after."

He smiled at her kindly. "All women want looking after," he said. "But you've shown yourself remarkably capable."

She smiled in return, rather ruefully. "I try to be," she said. "But I don't always feel it. It has been a great comfort to know I could apply to you in my difficulties. You'll let me make some return now, won't you? Caroline entrusted me to you, you know."

"The dear child! Well, my dear, you've done me good already. I thought you would. Yes, you've made yourself one of us, Ella. It won't be so desolating to come down here, if you're about. I shall be bringing people down, but they won't make up to me for the loss of my girls. You will; so I shall hope to see you over here as much as ever."

They reached the house again, and went in by the same way. Barbara met them in the upstairs corridor. "Dad, I've been looking for you everywhere," she said. "Where ever have you both been?"

"For a little walk to clear our brains," he said. "Now we're ready to take up our duties again. What do you want, darling?"

It seemed that she wanted nothing in particular. She talked to him for half a minute outside his room, and then went downstairs to join the rest.

That evening Ella found herself in a corner of the Long Gallery with Lady Grafton, with whom she had made friends.

"You're looking very beautiful to-night," said her ladyship, with an appraising and approving eye on her, "and most surprisingly young. How old are you, exactly? I should have said about nineteen."

"Thank you very much," said Ella. "I'm twenty-five. Sometimes I feel immeasurably older, but my happiest state is when I can think of myself as still a girl."

"Well, you look like one to-night; as I said, about nineteen. I can't think why you haven't married again. You must often have thought of it."

She blushed, quite like a girl. She was tall and slim and upright, and had some of the lithe grace of a beautiful Greek boy. She was beautiful in feature and colouring too, though it was not the kind of beauty that is always radiantly apparent, as Beatrix's was. But to-night she was at her best, and deserved the encomiums passed upon her by Lady Grafton, who was nothing if not critical.

"Nobody has wanted me," she said.

"Oh, come, my dear! Don't tell me that you've been about as much as you have, and with all you have to offer, without attracting the foolish race of men."

"Anyhow, nobody has wanted me whom I have wanted. My first experience wasn't a very happy one. I suppose you know that, and there's no harm in saying so."

"Not a bit. But you're through with it, and it hasn't left much mark. None that I can see, except that you're wiser. You wouldn't marry again without knowing what you were letting yourself in for. Men are easy enough to judge if you look at them with your eyes open. Of course when you're once in love with them you don't. But you can marry first and fall in love afterwards. It saves lots of bothers and gives you something interesting to do at the beginning of married life, which is apt to be rather dull."

Ella laughed. "I shouldn't care to run that risk," she said. "One's freedom is worth something, after all. I shouldn't want to marry anybody unless I loved him."

"No. You're very young still. You've a right to look for that sort of thing. But there's love and love. Unless you find yourself bowled over by a passion, which may happen to anybody unless they're on the lookout—at least, I'm told so; it hasn't happened to me yet—I should pick out a man you like and can trust to look after you, and make you happy. It's much more comfortable in the long run, and if you manage him properly you'll have all the love that's good for you, and the sort that lasts."

"Supposing he doesn't pick me!"

"Oh, my dear, you could make any man pick you. You'd only have to pay him a little attention, and flatter his vanity. They're all the same, when they arrive at years of indiscretion. That sounds rather clever. I suppose you wouldn't want quite a young man. I should think you wouldn't have much difficulty there either, though they want more careful handling; they're so full of whims and crotchets. But I shouldn't recommend quite a young man. Five and thirty to two or three and forty is the best age. I wish George was ten years or so younger. Then you might marry him, and we should keep you in the family. He's the dearest old affectionate bat-eyed creature, really, though I never let him know that I think so."

"Why do you call him bat-eyed? I don't propose to accept your invitation, but I love him all the same; and I don't think he's bat-eyed."

"Oh, my dear—the fuss he's made about his girls! I've had it all out with him. He thinks he's been actuated solely by the most unselfish desire for their happiness, when all the time he's just been hating it because he can't keep them forever circling round himself."

"I think you're very unfair. He does love them awfully, and of course he hates losing them. But the way he's behaved about Caroline shows that he hasn't been thinking of what he wants himself. I feel very sorry for him now. He has to begin all over again, and he isn't a bit like an old man, who can sit down and wait for the end. He's as young in his mind and in his tastes as if he were twenty years younger."

"Yes, he's more of a baby than most men of his age, and that's saying a good deal. He's kept himself fit too. Oh, I don't deny that it has been a good thing for him to have his children to play with. No doubt it has kept him out of a lot of mischief. And I'm rather sorry for him losing them, too, though I don't tell him so. He's too apt to be sorry for himself; and after all, he's got to put up with it, like everybody else."

"How unfeeling you are! I'm not going to hear my dear Mr. Grafton criticised in that way without protesting. If he had really been selfish, as most men are, he would just have gone on amusing himself and hardly have missed the girls at all. It's no discredit to him that he has been so happy in his home that he can't bear it to be broken up."

"I suppose he was grousing and grumbling about that when you went out for a walk this afternoon."

Ella wondered how she knew that they had been out for a walk, but did not ask her. "He wasn't," she said indignantly. "You say you like him, and you're always trying to make him out a poor weak creature with no backbone at all. I think he's a very wise man, and a good one too. I love him for loving his family as much as he does."

"Oh, well, my dear, if you love him, I don't want anything better. I told him the other day he ought to marry again, now the time has come for him to lose his girls. He made his first wife happy enough, and he'd make you. He's no longer young, but he isn't old either, and won't be for a long time to come. He's a husband you could be proud of, and he'd never let you down."

"Thanks for the offer. I'll wait till he makes it himself, and then I'll think about it. But please don't make mischief, or try to manage. As a matter of fact, I think the idea would rather shock him, and it isn't one that appeals to me, or I shouldn't talk about it as I'm doing now. He has been awfully sweet to me, and treated me very much like the rest. It has been just what I've wanted, for I was lonely till they came here. I'm going to keep it up, and help him to get over his bad time—dear Mr. Grafton! If you go spreading those ideas about you'll make it difficult for me. So please don't."

"I should be a precious fool if I did," said Lady Grafton enigmatically.