and Latin, he was the least fitted.  With enormous labour he took a very good degree.  He carried off besides, the highest distinctions of the University for English Essays.  The ordinary circles of College life knew nothing of him.  Not once in the whole course of his University career, was he the better for wine.  He, did not hunt; he never talked of women, and none talked of women in his presence.  But now and then he was visited by those gusts which come to the ascetic, when all life seemed suddenly caught up and devoured by a flame burning night and day, and going out mercifully, he knew not why, like a blown candle.  However unsocial in the proper sense of the word, he by no means lacked company in these Oxford days.  He knew many, both dons and undergraduates.  His long stride, and determined absence of direction, had severely tried all those who could stomach so slow a pastime as walking for the sake of talking.  The country knew him—­though he never knew the country—­from Abingdon to Bablock Hythe.  His name stood high, too, at the Union, where he made his mark during his first term in a debate on a ‘Censorship of Literature’ which he advocated with gloom, pertinacity, and a certain youthful brilliance that might well have carried the day, had not an Irishman got up and pointed out the danger hanging over the Old Testament.  To that he had retorted:  “Better, sir, it should run a risk than have no risk to run.”  From which moment he was notable.

He stayed up four years, and went down with a sense of bewilderment and loss.  The matured verdict of Oxford on this child of hers, was “Eustace Miltoun!  Ah!  Queer bird!  Will make his mark!”

He had about this time an interview with his father which confirmed the impression each had formed of the other.  It took place in the library at Monkland Court, on a late November afternoon.

The light of eight candles in thin silver candlesticks, four on either side of the carved stone hearth, illumined that room.  Their gentle radiance penetrated but a little way into the great dark space lined with books, panelled and floored with black oak, where the acrid fragrance of leather and dried roseleaves seemed to drench the, very soul with the aroma of the past.  Above the huge fireplace, with light falling on one side of his shaven face, hung a portrait—­painter unknown—­of that Cardinal Caradoc who suffered for his faith in the sixteenth century.  Ascetic, crucified, with a little smile clinging to the lips and deep-set eyes, he presided, above the bluefish flames of a log fire.

Father and son found some difficulty in beginning.

Each of those two felt as though he were in the presence of someone else’s very near relation.  They had, in fact, seen extremely little of each other, and not seen that little long.

Lord Valleys uttered the first remark: 

“Well, my dear fellow, what are you going to do now?  I think we can make certain of this seat down here, if you like to stand.”