On the afternoon of Christmas Day Norman went out to take the air. There was a cold drizzle of rain, and nobody was inclined to accompany him. He was not sorry to be alone, for he had a good deal to think about, and his thoughts flowed freely as he strode along, buttoned up in his rain coat and rather enjoying the bleak inclemency of the weather, so unlike that of the traditional Christmas. But the Christmas atmosphere was abundantly alive at the Hall, and he carried it with him as he tramped through the mud.

He came back as dusk was falling through the wood at the lower end of the park, and some association of place brought sharply back to his memory the fight he had had with Fred Comfrey down here, years before. He could see Fred and Hugo sitting on the log as he went towards them across the park, and there came to him a return of the feelings with which he had approached them. He came out of the wood at the place where the fallen log had been. It had gone now, but there was Fred, his old-time enemy, standing under a tree, with his eyes fixed upon the Hall, the windows of which were showing their welcoming lights that no longer welcomed him.

He started in surprised affront, as Norman came upon him. It was an awkward meeting, for his reason for being there was apparent, and he could not help knowing that it was so to Norman. He hunched his shoulders and turned away in offence, without a greeting. Norman, who had been thinking of him with cherished aversion, had an impulse of pity towards him, and obeyed the impulse instantly, as his custom was. "Merry Christmas!" he said. "I heard you were down here."

It was the first thing that came into his head to say, and was only meant as a disclaimer of enmity. But Fred took it as a jeer, and turned on him, his face flaming with antagonism. "I dare say you did," he said. "Damn you! I say something in confidence, and it's told to everybody at once; and I'm kicked out because of it. A merry Christmas!" There followed an oath directed against Norman, and he turned his back on him again.

Norman's impulsion of pity still held him. He had disliked Fred, in their boyhood, but before their final quarrel there had been times in which they had been companions, without hostility between them. That old contact was present to his mind; and Fred was down now; he couldn't triumph over him. "I didn't mean any offence," he said. "I do know what happened, but there's no offence in that either."

Fred turned on him again. "I'm not good enough for her," he said. "No offence in showing me that in the beastliest sort of way, I suppose! I do the straight thing, and it's immediately used as a weapon against me. Yet Eldridge was ready enough to come to me for help in his blasted money difficulties. If he doesn't mind telling everybody my affairs I don't mind telling his."

Again he turned away, leaving Norman at a loss. He took a few steps, and threw over his shoulder: "You make her think she's everything to you, and behave as if she was nothing. I'd have given her more than you ever will." Then he went away, leaving Norman with something more to think about, as he walked slowly back across the park in the chilly dusk to where the warmth and light of the house was awaiting him.

The next day he went away, and the Hall settled down again to the quiet life that had been brightened by his coming.

The weather cleared after Christmas, and on the first day on which the roads were dry enough Lord Crowborough came tricycling over to Hayslope Hall, and, in the same state of heat as before and with the same means of allaying it by his side, sat talking to his old friend.

He had heard of the decision to let the Hall, and was full of sympathy. At the same time, he couldn't quite understand it. What did William say about it? Surely—!

Colonel Eldridge cut him short. "There's no enmity now between me and William," he said. "We've practically agreed to go our separate ways, though that has never been put into words. William doesn't come into this, and wouldn't have come into it if we had never fallen out. All he could have done would have been to subsidize me here, and I dare say he would have been quite ready to do it. But of course I couldn't have accepted that in any case."

"No. I can see that, if you put it in that way. But there ought to be a way out, Edmund. He will succeed you here, and I am pretty certain that if you both wanted to you could arrange things."

"Not in any way that wouldn't come round in the long run to my staying here as William's pensioner. The property could be resettled by him and me and Norman agreeing; but there's nothing in it for me beyond my life interest and my wife's jointure. No; I am ready to go now, for some years at least. It's possible that after a time, when I've cleared off certain encumbrances on my income, I might be able to come back. But it isn't time to think of that yet. I shan't be sorry to go, if I can find something suitable to go to. This place has become a burden, and all the pleasure of living in it has departed. The nuisance is that there's no house here for me to go to. The Grange is out of the question, and there's no other house that would do for us without a lot of money spent upon it. I haven't got any money for such purposes."

"It seems hard lines that William should have spoilt the only house in the place that would suit you; and now he doesn't even live in it himself."

"Oh, well; that's done, and there's no good dwelling on it. Things have gone his way and they haven't gone mine. They haven't been going the way of us landowners for a long time, and the war has about finished us. I sometimes wish I'd been born a generation earlier. My father used to grumble sometimes; but look at the difference between those times and these. Oh, no; it's time I cleared out. There's no room in the world that's coming for people like me."

"Oh, my dear fellow, you mustn't talk like that. There's always room in the world for people like you. We shouldn't have won the war without 'em, for one thing."

"It doesn't seem to have done us much good winning the war. Nothing's the same as it was, and it will get worse. However, we needn't talk about that. We shall have to stick it out, whatever's in store for us. I don't suppose I've got more to grumble about than most. If I can let this house well, as I think I can, and find another somewhere, we shall be all right. I suppose the girls will marry in time. Cynthia and I will have enough, for as long as remains to us."

"I think I might find you a house, Edmund. I've been turning it over in my mind since I heard that you wanted something near here. Give me a few days longer. But I want to know—you didn't tell me. What does William say about your leaving Hayslope?"

"I don't suppose he knows. I haven't told him. I dare say Norman has by this time."

"I see Norman was here for Christmas, wasn't he? He's a nice boy, that. I'm glad it shouldn't have made a difference to him."

"So am I—very glad. Yes; he's a very nice boy. He's like a brother to my girls, and I'm glad they've got him, now their own brother is dead. He'll look after them, if they ever want looking after."

"They're dear girls, all of them, Edmund. You won't have them all with you for very long, I expect. I've had a sort of hope lately that—I don't see why such old friends as we are shouldn't talk over these things—I've a fancy that my boy thinks there's nobody in the world like your Pamela. Well, my wife says it's Pamela; I had a sort of idea myself that it was little Judith. It's one of 'em, or I'll eat my hat. Would that be agreeable to you, if it came off some day?"

Colonel Eldridge laughed. "It would be very agreeable to me," he said. "I've had things put to me that weren't so agreeable. Fathers don't seem to have much of a say in these matters nowadays. But, thank goodness, my girls weren't old enough to run all those risks of war-time. Yes, John, if that arrangement would suit you, it would certainly suit me. I've been wondering, quite lately what sort of marriage Pamela would make—realizing that she was old enough to get married, which I suppose doesn't come into a father's head about his eldest girl until it's put there."

"No; or with a son either. But Jim is my only one, and I should like him to marry early, and see my grandson growing up, if I'm spared so long. I shouldn't care for my brother Alfred's boys to come into the succession. However, that's a long way ahead yet. Jim's a steady fellow now, and inclined to take his life seriously—more seriously, perhaps, than we did when we were young fellows; but it's not a bad thing either. What I mean is that I think it would be a good thing for him to marry, and with such a wife as your Pamela—well, he'd be a very lucky fellow, and she'd get him on in the world. There's still something to do for a man in the position he'll have to fill, and the right sort of wife would help him no end."

When Lord Crowborough had pedalled himself away, Colonel Eldridge went back to his room, and sat there in front of the fire, with pleasanter thoughts to keep him company than he had had for some time. The episode with Fred Comfrey had made its mark upon him, though it had come and gone so quickly that he had suffered little distress because of it. He could hardly help thinking of himself as having come down in the world, since he was no longer able to support the modest dignity that had been his as the head of an old-established family living in the large house in the middle of his acres in which his fathers had lived before him. Fred Comfrey's proposal had seemed to mark that descent, for it had not been from among men such as he that the daughters of the house had taken their husbands. Now this so different proposal wiped out the effect of that one. If only Pamela...!

When he told his wife about it, he found that it was no new idea to her. "I didn't want to talk about it," she said, "because one is naturally careful about not appearing to rush at a marriage of that sort. There will be plenty of people to say that we have been angling for it—or that I have—if it does happen. I do think that there's no doubt about Jim. In fact, I shouldn't be in the least surprised if he hadn't put it to Pam already."

"What—do you mean to say that they have come to an understanding?"

"I'm afraid not. If he has asked her, she has refused him. I don't know, because she has said nothing to me; but one has a sort of instinct with one's own daughters. Perhaps it's more likely that she won't give him an answer yet. They are as good friends as ever. I don't think he would come here in the way he does if she had refused him definitely."

This rather dashed him. "Crowborough said something about Judith," he said. "He'd had an idea that she was the attraction; but her ladyship seems to have chased that idea out of his head."

Mrs. Eldridge laughed, and said: "For once I agree with her. I was inclined to think it was Judith at one time myself, though I'd hardly come to think of her as more than a child. They get on splendidly together, and really I think she'd be more suited to him than Pam. However, there's no good thinking of that, for it is Pam, and there's no doubt about it. Darling Pam! I do wish she would come round to it. She is taking our present troubles hardly, and it would be good for her to be lifted out of them. Perhaps she will, in time. But there's no good in pressing her; we must just leave it."

"Oh, pressing her! Good heavens, no! I shouldn't like her to marry him for the reasons that would appeal to us, either. I believe in a love match, for everybody; but there ought to be something behind it too."

Mrs. Eldridge leant over his chair and kissed him on the forehead. "We've never regretted our love match, have we?" she said.

He reached up and took her hand in his. "We hardly thought it was going to bring us to this pass towards the close of our lives," he said. "But it won't part us, so it's not so bad. Crowborough said he might be able to find a house for us. There are several nice little places on his property. If one of them fell vacant, I could carry on here from it. Otherwise, I don't see anything for it but to put in an agent, and only come down now and then. I think now we've made up our minds, the worst is over. I wish William had written, though. He couldn't do anything to help us, perhaps; but I should have thought it must have meant something to him—our having to clear out. Norman must have told him, and there would have been time to hear from him by now."

"If there's nothing he could do," she said, "perhaps it's as well that he should leave it alone. We don't want the contrast between us made plainer than it is."

With that she left him. She could not trust herself to talk with him about his brother, against whom her anger was hot within her. She knew with what a weight the estrangement was lying upon him now; that the irritation he had felt against William had all disappeared; and that he was inclined to blame himself for all that had happened, to the justification of the man who was pursuing his eager successful course without an apparent thought of the troubles from which he had cut himself loose. She had hoped something from William until now. Looking back upon the whole course of the quarrel, she did recognize that he had made efforts to end it, and shown here and there the generosity which had always been a mark of his character. But, after all, his generosity had been easy to exercise. They had all lived in close contact for years, and he had got as good as he had given, in the affection which had prompted his generosity. Now that had fallen into the second place with him; he was in pursuit of associations other than the ties of family, and it was to further them that his openhandedness would be used. What did they matter to him at Hayslope? He had run away from the place in which so many of his interests had been bound up, rather than face the awkwardness of a situation which he could have ended at any time by a little patience and consideration. Even their leaving it was nothing to him now. Four days had gone by since he must have been told of it. He was not away, for Norman had written to Pam only the day before, and mentioned him. It must be accepted now that he didn't care. It would be as well that her husband should come to recognize that, and then he would cease longing for what was over and done with, and rely only upon those who loved him so dearly for his solace in life.

But she couldn't hasten the time. He must be made sadder yet before he could put away his sadness, and accept the new conditions.

She talked to Pamela that night. No pressure was to be put on her, she had said. She put all the pressure of which she was capable, being very careful to disguise the fact that she was putting any pressure at all. She loved Pamela more than her other girls; she was making more and more of a companion of her; she would hate giving her up to the best of husbands. But to please her own husband, to get for him, something that would lift from him some of the weight under which he was drooping, she would have pushed her daughter into a marriage with less prospects of happiness in it than this held out. She was ruthless with her, while talking to her with a sort of cooing tenderness and sympathy, and searching among half confessions and confidences for the point upon which she could concentrate to move her. Her father was mentioned but rarely. There was no plea to sacrifice herself for his sake. But it was inherent in everything that she said that submission on Pamela's part would bring something to him that nothing else could in these shadowed days. She did not place before her any of the advantages that would accrue to her from a marriage that would bring her wealth and station. She mentioned them only to make light of them. They knew, she and Pamela, that those were not the best things in life, though one was better off with them than without them. What were the best things? They seemed to be summed up in Horsham, according to her opinion, though she did not overpraise him.

No disagreement was possible with anything that she said. She put herself apparently into complete accord with Pamela, and made it difficult for her so much as to say that she didn't love Horsham; for that would have been the answer to an invitation that was never made, in so many words. The respect and even affection that Pamela was made to acknowledge as representing her feelings towards Horsham were taken as the most satisfactory with which to start upon married life. That was apparently agreed on all hands, and was hardly worth discussing. The question of "falling in love" was lightly touched upon. It sometimes happened before marriage, sometimes afterwards. The marriages that began with youthful raptures didn't always turn out the most satisfactory. It seemed to be indicated that there was something almost indelicate in a girl's looking out for those raptures; she would have no fear of such a desire in a daughter of hers.

They ended their long talk under the supposition that Pamela wouldn't marry for years to come, and discussed the future hopefully. It would be splendid if Lord Crowborough did find them a nice house, near enough to Hayslope for father to be able to look after things from there. They could furnish a house of three or four sitting-rooms and eight or ten bedrooms beautifully from the Hall, and leave quite enough behind them. They could have a lovely garden, and there would probably be enough land for a little farmery, in which they would all interest themselves. "I'm sure we should be much happier than we are here now," Mrs. Eldridge said. "I think even father has come to see that, and if he gets rid of his worries we shall have him with us for many years to come, just as he used to be. He is more cheerful now than he has been for a long time, though he isn't well. I do think there's a brighter time coming for us at last."