"John will show you your room. Supper is at half-past seven. We
have given up late dinner for some time now. Lady Tadminster,
our Member's wife--she was the late Lord Abbotsbury's
daughter--does the same. She agrees with me that one must set an
example of economy. We are quite a war household; nothing is
wasted here--every scrap of waste paper, even, is saved and sent
away in sacks."

I expressed my appreciation, and John took me into the house and
up the broad staircase, which forked right and left half-way to
different wings of the building. My room was in the left wing,
and looked out over the park.

John left me, and a few minutes later I saw him from my window
walking slowly across the grass arm in arm with Cynthia Murdoch.
I heard Mrs. Inglethorp call "Cynthia" impatiently, and the girl
started and ran back to the house. At the same moment, a man
stepped out from the shadow of a tree and walked slowly in the
same direction. He looked about forty, very dark with a
melancholy clean-shaven face. Some violent emotion seemed to be
mastering him. He looked up at my window as he passed, and I
recognized him, though he had changed much in the fifteen years
that had elapsed since we last met. It was John's younger
brother, Lawrence Cavendish. I wondered what it was that had
brought that singular expression to his face.

Then I dismissed him from my mind, and returned to the
contemplation of my own affairs.