Again he writhed over, sick with pain and longing; and so lay.

* * * * *

It was ten minutes before he moved again, and then he only roused
himself as he heard a foot on the stairs. Perhaps it was his mother.
He slipped off the couch and stood up, his face lined and creased with
the pressure with which he had lain just now, and smoothed his tumbled
clothes. Yes, he must go down.

He stepped to the door and opened it.

"I am coming immediately," he said to the servant.

* * * * *

He bore himself at lunch with a respectable self-control, though he
said little or nothing. His mother's attitude he found hard to bear,
as he caught her eyes once or twice looking at him with sympathy; and
he allowed himself internally to turn to Maggie with relief in spite
of his meditations just now. She at least respected his sorrow, he
told himself. She bore herself very naturally, though with long
silences, and never once met his eyes with her own. He made his
excuses as soon as he could and slipped across to the stable yard. At
least he would be alone this afternoon. Only, as he rode away half an
hour later, he caught a sight of the slender little figure of his
mother waiting to have one word with him if she could, beyond the
hall-door. But he set his lips and would not see her.

It was one of those perfect September days that fall sometimes as a