"You darling!... Well, Robin, listen to me. It is very plain that sooner
or later you will have to withstand him. You cannot go away every time
there is communion at Matstead, or, indeed, every Sunday. Your father
would have to pay the fines for you, I have no doubt, unless you went
away altogether. But I think you had better go away for this time. He
will almost expect it, I think. At first he will think that you will
yield to him; and then, little by little (unless God's grace brings
himself back to the Faith), he will learn to understand that you will
not. But it will be easier for him that way; and he will have time to
think what to do with you, too.... Robin, what would you do if you went
away?"

Robin considered again.

"I can read and write," he said. "I am a Latinist: I can train falcons
and hounds and break horses. I do not know if there is anything else
that I can do."

"You darling!" she said again.

* * * * *

These two, as will have been seen, were as simple as children, and as
serious. Children are not gay and light-hearted, except now and then
(just as men and women are not serious except now and then). They are
grave and considering: all that they lack is experience. These two,
then, were real children; they were grave and serious because a great
thing had disclosed itself to them in which two or three large
principles were present, and no more. There was that love of one