to Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire manse, and had had a mother before
whose name, while she lived, people wrote "The Hon." Besides, the
singing had stopped, and casual observation from the street was checked
by a screen.

"I have wondered sometimes what their methods really are," said Arnold.

Their methods were just on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed
youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulders, fingering a
cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two men
beside the door, and a light, clear voice seemed to call after him--

"Ah! don't go away!"

Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a whimsical speculation
whether now, at the week's end, the soul of Hilda Howe was still
pursuing the broad road to perdition. The desire to enter sprang up
in him: he was reminded of a vista of some interest which had recently
revealed itself by an accident, and which he had not explored. It had
almost passed out of his memory; he grasped at it again with something
like excitement, and fell adroitly upon the half inclination in Arnold's
voice.

"I suppose I can't expect you to go in?" he said.

"Precisely why not?" Stephen retorted. "My dear fellow, we make broad
our sympathies, not our phylacteries."

At any other time Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic was
the gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with amusement the