Two days after Mr. Vanstone’s return from London, he was called away from the breakfast-table before he had found time enough to look over his letters, delivered by the morning’s post.  Thrusting them into one of the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he took the letters out again, at one grasp, to read them when occasion served, later in the day.  The grasp included the whole correspondence, with one exception—­that exception being a final report from the civil engineer, which notified the termination of the connection between his pupil and himself, and the immediate return of Frank to his father’s house.

While this important announcement lay unsuspected in Mr. Vanstone’s pocket, the object of it was traveling home, as fast as railways could take him.  At half-past ten at night, while Mr. Clare was sitting in studious solitude over his books and his green tea, with his favorite black cat to keep him company, he heard footsteps in the passage—­the door opened—­and Frank stood before him.

Ordinary men would have been astonished.  But the philosopher’s composure was not to be shaken by any such trifle as the unexpected return of his eldest son.  He could not have looked up more calmly from his learned volume if Frank had been absent for three minutes instead of three years.

“Exactly what I predicted,” said Mr. Clare.  “Don’t interrupt me by making explanations; and don’t frighten the cat.  If there is anything to eat in the kitchen, get it and go to bed.  You can walk over to Combe-Raven tomorrow and give this message from me to Mr. Vanstone:  ’Father’s compliments, sir, and I have come back upon your hands like a bad shilling, as he always said I should.  He keeps his own guinea, and takes your five; and he hopes you’ll mind what he says to you another time.’  That is the message.  Shut the door after you.  Good-night.”

Under these unfavorable auspices, Mr. Francis Clare made his appearance the next morning in the grounds at Combe-Raven; and, something doubtful of the reception that might await him, slowly approached the precincts of the house.

It was not wonderful that Magdalen should have failed to recognize him when he first appeared in view.  He had gone away a backward lad of seventeen; he returned a young man of twenty.  His slim figure had now acquired strength and grace, and had increased in stature to the medium height.  The small regular features, which he was supposed to have inherited from his mother, were rounded and filled out, without having lost their remarkable delicacy of form.  His beard was still in its infancy; and nascent lines of whisker traced their modest way sparely down his cheeks.  His gentle, wandering brown eyes would have looked to better advantage in a woman’s face—­they wanted spirit and firmness to fit them for the face of a man.  His hands had the same wandering habit as his eyes; they were constantly changing from one position to another, constantly twisting and turning any little stray thing they could pick up.  He was undeniably handsome, graceful, well-bred—­but no close observer could look at him without suspecting that the stout old family stock had begun to wear out in the later generations, and that Mr. Francis Clare had more in him of the shadow of his ancestors than of the substance.