heart.

But at the door of the church the monk drew his arm within his own for a
moment and held it, and Chris saw the shadowed eyes under his brows rest
on him tenderly.

"God bless you, Chris!" he said.




CHAPTER IV

A COMMISSION


Within a few days of Christopher's departure to Lewes, Ralph also left
Overfield and went back to London.

He was always a little intolerant at home, and generally appeared there
at his worst--caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that
the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither
wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the
same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or,
out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to
the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such
things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his
parents. He could not help respecting the piety of his father, but he
was none the less bored by it; and the atmosphere of silent cynicism
that seemed to hang round his mother was his only relief. He thought he