She never needed urging however to go to Brinton, the dearest old
house in the world, where the happiest days of her young life had
been spent and the silent nearness of her mother always seemed
greatest. She was happy again, with Beatrice and Muriel and Miss
Flynn, with the air of summer and the haunted rooms and her mother's
garden and the talking oaks and the nightingales. She wrote briefly
to her father, giving him, as he had requested, an account of things;
and he wrote back that since she was so contented--she didn't
recognise having told him that--she had better not return to town at
all. The fag-end of the London season would be unimportant to her,
and he was getting on very well. He mentioned that Godfrey had
passed his tests, but, as she knew, there would be a tiresome wait
before news of results. The poor chap was going abroad for a month
with young Sherard--he had earned a little rest and a little fun. He
went abroad without a word to Adela, but in his beautiful little hand
he took a chaffing leave of Beatrice. The child showed her sister
the letter, of which she was very proud and which contained no
message for any one else. This was the worst bitterness of the whole
crisis for that somebody--its placing in so strange a light the
creature in the world whom, after her mother, she had loved best.

Colonel Chart had said he would "run down" while his children were at
Brinton, but they heard no more about it. He only wrote two or three
times to Miss Flynn on matters in regard to which Adela was surprised
he shouldn't have communicated with herself. Muriel accomplished an
upright little letter to Mrs. Churchley--her eldest sister neither
fostered nor discouraged the performance--to which Mrs. Churchley
replied, after a fortnight, in a meagre and, as Adela thought,
illiterate fashion, making no allusion to the approach of any closer