“Hallo, Philip, back again, are you?  Been up to town, I suppose, and driven over in the ‘George’ gig?  That’s lucky; I wanted to speak to you.  Come in here, there’s a good fellow, I want to speak to you.”

“Why is he so infernally genial?” reflected Philip.  “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes;” then aloud, “All right, father; but if it is all the same to you, I should like to get some dinner first.”

“Dinner! why, I have had none yet; I have been too busy.  I shall not keep you long; we will dine together presently.”

Philip was surprised, and glanced at him suspiciously.  His habits were extremely regular; why had he had no dinner?

Meanwhile his father led the way into the study, muttering below his breath—­

“One more chance—­his last chance.”

A wood fire was burning brightly on the hearth, for the evening was chilly, and some sherry and glasses stood upon the table.

“Take a glass of wine, Philip; I am going to have one; it is a good thing to begin a conversation on.  What says the Psalmist:  ’Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make him a cheerful countenance’—­a cheerful countenance!  Ho, ho! my old limbs are tired; I am going to sit down—­going to sit down.”

He seated himself in a well-worn leather arm-chair by the side of the fire so that his back was towards the dying daylight.  But the brightness of the flames threw the clear-cut features into strong relief against the gloom, and by it Philip could see that the withered cheeks were flushed.  Somehow the whole strongly defined scene made him feel uncanny and restless.

“Cold for the first of May, isn’t it, lad?  The world is very cold at eighty-two.  Eighty-two, a great age, yet it seems but the other day that I used to sit in this very chair and dandle you upon my knee, and make this repeater strike for you.  And yet that is twenty years since, and I have lived through four twenties and two years.  A great age, a cold world!”

“Ain’t you well?” asked his son, brusquely, but not unkindly.

“Well; ah, yes! thank you, Philip, I never felt better, my memory is so good, I can see things I have forgotten seventy years or more.  Dear, dear, it was behind that bookcase in a hole in the board that I used to hide my flint and steel which I used for making little fires at the foot of Caresfoot’s Staff.  There is a mark on the bark now.  I was mischievous as a little lad, and thought that the old tree would make a fine blaze.  I was audacious, too, and delighted to hide the things in my father’s study under the very nose of authority.  Ay, and other memories come upon me as I think.  It was here upon this very table that they stood my mother’s coffin.  I was standing where you are now when I wrenched open the half-fastened shell to kiss her once more before they screwed her down for ever.  I wonder would you do as much for me?  I loved my mother, and that was fifty years ago.  I wonder shall we meet again?  That was on the first of May, a long-gone first of May.  They threw branches of blackthorn bloom upon her coffin.  Odd, very odd!  But business, lad, business—­what was it?  Ah!  I know,” and his manner changed in a second and became hard and stern.  “About Maria, have you come to a decision?”