every word a wound! He knew that the most poisonous of them all were
false; he had known it even while he spoke them; it was not to curry
favour with her Grace that his father had lapsed; it was that his temper
was tried beyond bearing by those continual fines and rebuffs; the old
man's patience was gone--that was all. And he, his son, had not said one
word of comfort or strength; he had thought of himself and his own
wrongs, and being reviled he had reviled again....

There stood against the wall between the windows a table and an oaken
desk that held the estate-bills and books; and beside the desk were laid
clean sheets of paper, an ink-pot, a pounce-box, and three or four
feather pens. It was here that he wrote, being newly from school, at his
father's dictation, or his father sometimes wrote himself, with pain and
labour, the few notices or letters that were necessary. So he went to
this and sat down at it; he pondered a little; then he wrote a single
line of abject regret.

"I ask your pardon and God's, sir, for the wicked words I said before I
left the parlour. R." He folded this and addressed it with the proper
superscription; and left it lying there.


III

It was a strange ride that he had back from Tansley next morning after
mass.

Dick Sampson had met him with the horses in the stable-court at Matstead
a little after four o'clock in the morning; and together they had ridden
through the pitch darkness, each carrying a lantern fastened to his