“No, Maude.  He—­”

“Be quiet!” said Lady Hartledon, bending towards her husband and speaking in low tones.  “It is not for you to interfere.  Would you deny him everything?”

A strangely bitter expression sat on Val’s lips.  Not of anger; not even mortification, but sad, cruel pain.  He said no more.

And the cavalcade started.  Lady Hartledon driving, the boy-groom sitting beside her, and Eddie’s short legs striding the pony.  They were keeping to the Park, she called to her husband, and she should drive slowly.

There was no real danger, as Val believed; only he did not like the child’s wilful temper given way to.  With a deep sigh he turned indoors for his hat, and went strolling down the avenue.  Mrs. Capper dropped a curtsey as he passed the lodge.

“Have you heard from your son yet?” he asked.

“Yes, my lord, many thanks to you.  The school suits him bravely.”

Turning out of the gates, he saw Floyd, the miller, walking slowly along.  The man had been confined to his bed for weeks in the summer, with an attack of acute rheumatism, and to the house afterwards.  It was the first time they had met since that morning long ago, when the miller brought up the purse.  Lord Hartledon did not know him at first, he was so altered; pale and reduced.

“Is it really you, Floyd?”

“What’s left of me, my lord.”

“And that’s not much; but I am glad to see you so far well,” said
Hartledon, in his usual kindly tone.  “I have heard reports of you from
Mr. Hillary.”

“Your lordship’s altered too.”

“Am I?”

“Well, it seems so to me.  But it’s some few years now since I saw you.  Nothing has ever come to light about that pocket-book, my lord.”

“I conclude not, or I should have heard of it.”

“And your lordship never came down to see the place!”

“No.  I left Hartledon the same day, I think, or the next.  After all, Floyd, I don’t see that it is of any use looking into these painful things:  it cannot bring the dead to life again.”

“That’s, true,” said the miller.

He was walking into Calne.  Lord Hartledon kept by his side, talking to him.  He promised to be as popular a man as his father had been; and that was saying a great deal.  When they came opposite the Rectory, Lord Hartledon wished him good day and more strength, in his genial manner, and turned in at the Rectory gates.

About once a week he was in the habit of calling upon Mrs. Ashton.  Peace was between them; and these visits to her sick-chamber were strangely welcome to her heart.  She had loved Val Elster all her life, and she loved him still, in spite of the past.  For Val was curiously subdued; and his present mood, sad, quiet, thoughtful, was more endearing than his gayer one had been.  Mrs. Ashton did not fail to read that he was a disappointed man, one with some constant care upon him.