“Aunt Margaret isn’t after all so violent,” said Dick, for whom she kept a very soft place in her heart.  But Harold shook his head.

“Your aunt, Richard, has all the primeval ferocity of the average woman.”  And then the fires of the enthusiast were set alight in his blue eyes.  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do:  I’ll send her my new pamphlet, Richard.  It may have a humanising influence upon her.  I have some advance copies.  I’ll send her one this afternoon.”

Dick’s eyes twinkled.

“I should if I were you, though to be sure, sir, we have tried that plan before without any prodigious effect.”

“True, Richard, true, but I have never before risen to such heights as these.”  Mr. Hazlewood threw down his napkin and paced the room.  “Richard, I am not inclined to boast.  I am a humble man.”

“It is only humility, sir, which achieves great work,” said Dick, as he went contentedly on with his luncheon.

“But the very title of this pamphlet seems to me calculated to interest the careless and attract the thoughtful.  It is called The Prison Walls must Cast no Shadow.”

With an arm outstretched he seemed to deliver the words of the title one by one from the palm of his hand.  Then he stood smiling, confident, awaiting applause.  Dick’s face, which had shown the highest expectancy, slowly fell in a profound disappointment.  He laid down his knife and fork.

“Oh, come, father.  All walls cast shadows.  It entirely depends upon the altitude of the sun.”

Mr. Hazlewood returned to his seat and spoke gently.

“The phrase, my boy, is a metaphor.  I develop in this pamphlet my belief that a convict, once he has expiated his offence, should upon his release be restored to the precise position in society which he held before with all its privileges unimpaired.”

Dick chuckled in the most unregenerate delight.

“You are going it, father,” he said, and disappointment came to Mr. Hazlewood.

“Richard,” he remonstrated mildly, “I hoped that I should have had your approval.  It seemed to me that a change was taking place in you, that the player of polo, the wild hunter of an inoffensive little white ball, was developing into the humanitarian.”

“Well, sir,” rejoined Dick, “I won’t deny that of late I have been beginning to think that there is a good deal in your theories.  But you mustn’t try me too high at the beginning, you know.  I am only in my novitiate.  However, please send it to Aunt Margaret, and—­oh, how I would like to hear her remarks upon it!”

An idea occurred to Mr. Hazlewood.

“Richard, why shouldn’t you take it over yourself this afternoon?”

Dick shook his head.

“Impossible, father, I have something to do.”  He looked out of the window down to the river running dark in the shade of trees.  “But I’ll go to-morrow morning,” he added.

And the next morning he walked over early to Great Beeding.  His aunt would have received the pamphlet by the first post and he wished to seize the first fine careless rapture of her comments.  But he found her in a mood of distress rather than of wordy impatience.