When all was ended and only old William Baggs stood by the grave and watched the sextons fill it, a small company walked together up the hill north of Bridetown.  Daniel went first with Mr. Churchouse, and behind them followed Miss Jenny Ironsyde with a man and a child.  The man rented North Hill House.  Arthur Waldron was a widower, who lived now for two things:  his little daughter, Estelle, and sport.  No other considerations challenged his mind.  He was rich and good-hearted.  He knew that his little girl had brains, and he dealt fairly with her in the matter of education.

Of the Ironsyde brothers, Raymond was his personal friend, and Mr. Waldron now permitted himself some vague expression of regret that the young man should have been absent on such an occasion.

“Yes,” said Miss Ironsyde, to whom he spoke, “if there’s any excuse for convention it’s at a funeral.  No doubt people will magnify the incident into a scandal—­for their own amusement and the amusement of their friends.  If Raymond had enjoyed time to reflect, I feel sure he would have come; but there was no time.  His father has made no provision for him, and he is rather upset.  It is not unnatural that he should be, for dear Henry, while always very impatient of Raymond’s sporting tastes and so on, never threatened anything like this.”

“No doubt Mr. Ironsyde would have made a difference if he had not died so suddenly.”

“I think so too,” she answered.

Then Waldron and his daughter went homewards; while the others, turning down a lane to the right, reached ’The Magnolias’—­a small, ancient house whose face was covered with green things and whose lawn spread to the river bank.

Mrs. Dinnett had prepared a special meal of a sort associated with the mournful business of the day; for a funeral feast has its own character; the dishes should be cold and the wine should be white or brown.

Mr. Churchouse was concerned to know what Daniel meant to do for Raymond; but he found the heir by no means inclined to emotional generosity.

Daniel spoke in a steady voice, though he showed a spark of feeling presently.  The fire, however, was for his dead father, not his living brother.

“I’m very sorry that Raymond could have been so small as to keep away from the funeral,” he said.  “It was petty.  But, as Aunt Jenny says, he’s built like that, and no doubt the shock of being ignored knocked him off his balance.”

“He has the defects of his qualities, my dear.  The same people can often rise to great heights and sink to great depths.  They can do worse things—­and better things—­than we humdrum folk, who jog along the middle of the road.  We must forgive such people for doing things we wouldn’t do, and remember their power to do things we couldn’t do.”

The young man was frankly puzzled by this speech, which came from his aunt.  He shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve got to think of father first and Raymond afterwards,” he said.  “I owe my first duty to my father, who trusted me and honoured me, and knew very well that I should obey his wishes and carry on with my life as he would have liked to see me.  He has made a very definite and clear statement, and I should be disloyal to him—­dishonest to him—­if I did anything contrary to the spirit of it.”