way, at once more engaged in it, and more detached from it, each
quality ministering to the other. It seemed to him that afternoon
that there was something awaiting him greater than anything which
had yet befallen him--an open door, through which he might pass to
see strange things.






VI

THE HOME CIRCLE





He returned somewhat late, to find tea over and Mrs. Graves gone to
her room; but there was tea waiting for him in the library; he went
there, and for a while turned over his book, which seemed to him
now to be illumined with a new light. It was this that he had been
looking for, this gift of power; it was that which lay behind his
speculations; he had suspected it, inferred it, but not perceived
it; he saw now whither his thought had been conducting him, and why
he had flagged in the pursuit.

He went up to dress for dinner, and came down as soon as the bell
rang. He found that Jack's father and sister had arrived. He went