held him yet in the last echo of their music. Peace seemed, too, to lie
across the world, worn with the day's heat, where the shadows were
stretching in lengthening, cooling lines. And there at the vestry step,
where Eleanor had stood an hour before, was Dick Fielding, waiting for
him, with as unhappy a face as an eldest scion, the heir to millions,
well loved, and well brought up, and wonderfully unspoiled, ever carried
about a country-side. The Bishop was staying at the Fieldings'. He
nodded and swung past Dick, with a look from the tail of his eye that
said: "Come along." Dick came, and silently the two turned into the path
of the fields. The scowl on Dick's dark face deepened as they walked,
and that was all there was by way of conversation for some time.
Finally:

"You don't know about it, do you, Bishop?" he asked.

"A very little, my boy," the Bishop answered.

Dick was on the defensive in a moment. "My father told you--you agree
with him?"

"Your father has told me nothing. I only came last night, remember. I
know that you made Madge cry, and that Eleanor wasn't allowed to punish
you."

The boyish face cleared a little, and he laughed. "That little rat! Has
she been talking? It's all right if it's only to you, but Madge will
have to cork her up." Then anxiety and unhappiness seized Dick's buoyant
soul again. "Bishop, let me talk to you, will you please? I'm knocked up
about this, for there's never been trouble between my father and me
before, and I can't give in. I know I'm right--I'd be a cad to give in,