forget, the cupboard of shadows never wholly closed, shadows which at any
moment might steal out and encompass his darkening life? He sat there
motionless, and his thoughts travelled backwards. There were many things
in his life which he had forgotten, but never this. Every word that had
been spoken, every detail in that tragic little scene seemed to glide
into his memory with a distinctness and amplitude which time had never
for one second dimmed. So it must be until the end. He forgot the girl
and her errand. He forgot the carefully cultivated philosophy which for
so many years had helped him towards forgetfulness. So he sat until the
sound of their voices upon the lawn recalled him to the present.

"I will leave you to have your talk with uncle," Clara said. "Afterwards
I will come back to you. There he is, sitting under the cedar tree."

The girl came swiftly over to his side. For a moment the compassion which
he had always felt for her swept away the memory of his own sorrow. Her
pallid, colourless face had lost everything except expression. If the
weariness, which seemed to have found a home in her eyes, was just now
absent, it was because a worse thing was shining out of them--a fear,
of which there were traces even in her hurried walk and tone. He rose at
once and held out his hands.

"Come and sit down, Hester," he said, "and don't look so frightened."

She obeyed him at once.

"I am frightened," she said, "because I feel that I ought not to have
come here, and yet I thought that you ought to know at once what has
happened. Sir Leslie Borrowdean has been coming to see mother. Last night
he took her out to dinner. She came home--late--she was not quite