“Dad, promise me not to worry about Nollie; we’ll take care of her.”

“She can only take care of herself, Gracie, and will she?  Did you know that Captain Fort was here yesterday?”

“She told me.”

“What is her feeling about him?”

“I don’t think she knows.  Nollie dreams along, and then suddenly rushes.”

“I wish she were safe from that man.”

“But, Dad, why?  George likes him and so do I.”

A big grey moth was fluttering against the lamp.  Pierson got up and caught it in the curve of his palm.  “Poor thing!  You’re like my Nollie; so soft, and dreamy, so feckless, so reckless.”  And going to the curtains, he thrust his hand through, and released the moth.

“Dad!” said Gratian suddenly, “we can only find out for ourselves, even if we do singe our wings in doing it.  We’ve been reading James’s ‘Pragmatism.’  George says the only chapter that’s important is missing—­the one on ethics, to show that what we do is not wrong till it’s proved wrong by the result.  I suppose he was afraid to deliver that lecture.”

Pierson’s face wore the smile which always came on it when he had to deal with George, the smile which said:  “Ah, George, that’s very clever; but I know.”

“My dear,” he said, “that doctrine is the most dangerous in the world.  I am surprised at George.”

“I don’t think George is in danger, Dad.”

“George is a man of wide experience and strong judgment and character; but think how fatal it would be for Nollie, my poor Nollie, whom a little gust can blow into the candle.”

“All the same,” said Gratian stubbornly, “I don’t think anyone can be good or worth anything unless they judge for themselves and take risks.”

Pierson went close to her; his face was quivering.

“Don’t let us differ on this last night; I must go up to Nollie for a minute, and then to bed.  I shan’t see you to-morrow; you mustn’t get up; I can bear parting better like this.  And my train goes at eight.  God bless you, Gracie; give George my love.  I know, I have always known that he’s a good man, though we do fight so.  Good-bye, my darling.”

He went out with his cheeks wet from Gratian’s tears, and stood in the porch a minute to recover his composure.  The shadow of the house stretched velvet and blunt over the rock-garden.  A night-jar was spinning; the churring sound affected him oddly.  The last English night-bird he would hear.  England!  What a night-to say good-bye!  ’My country!’ he thought; ‘my beautiful country!’ The dew was lying thick and silvery already on the little patch of grass-the last dew, the last scent of an English night.  The call of a bugle floated out.  “England!” he prayed; “God be about you!” A little sound answered from across the grass, like an old man’s cough, and the scrape and rattle of a chain.  A face emerged at the edge of the house’s shadow; bearded and horned like that of Pan, it seemed to stare at him.  And he saw the dim grey form of the garden goat, heard it scuttle round the stake to which it was tethered, as though alarmed at this visitor to its’ domain.