The efforts of social man, directed from immemorial time towards the stability of things, have culminated in Worsted Skeynes.  Beyond commercial competition—­for the estate no longer paid for living on it—­beyond the power of expansion, set with tradition and sentiment, it was an undoubted jewel, past need of warranty.  Cradled within it were all those hereditary institutions of which the country was most proud, and Mr. Pendyce sometimes saw before him the time when, for services to his party, he should call himself Lord Worsted, and after his own death continue sitting in the House of Lords in the person of his son.  But there was another feeling in the Squire’s heart—­the air and the woods and the fields had passed into his blood a love for this, his home and the home of his fathers.

And so a terrible unrest pervaded the whole household after the receipt of Jaspar Bellew’s note.  Nobody was told anything, yet everybody knew there was something; and each after his fashion, down to the very dogs, betrayed their sympathy with the master and mistress of the house.

Day after day the girls wandered about the new golf course knocking the balls aimlessly; it was all they could do.  Even Cecil Tharp, who had received from Bee the qualified affirmative natural under the circumstances, was infected.  The off foreleg of her grey mare was being treated by a process he had recently discovered, and in the stables he confided to Bee that the dear old Squire seemed “off his feed;” he did not think it was any good worrying him at present.  Bee, stroking the mare’s neck, looked at him shyly and slowly.

“It’s about George,” she said; “I know it’s about George!  Oh, Cecil!  I do wish I had been a boy!”

Young Tharp assented in spite of himself: 

“Yes; it must be beastly to be a girl.”

A faint flush coloured Bee’s cheeks.  It hurt her a little that he should agree; but her lover was passing his hand down the mare’s shin.

“Father is rather trying,” she said.  “I wish George would marry.”

Cecil Tharp raised his bullet head; his blunt, honest face was extremely red from stooping.

“Clean as a whistle,” he said; “she’s all right, Bee.  I expect George has too good a time.”

Bee turned her face away and murmured: 

“I should loathe living in London.”  And she, too, stooped and felt the mare’s shin.

To Mrs. Pendyce in these days the hours passed with incredible slowness.  For thirty odd years she had waited at once for everything and nothing; she had, so to say, everything she could wish for, and—­nothing, so that even waiting had been robbed of poignancy; but to wait like this, in direct suspense, for something definite was terrible.  There was hardly a moment when she did not conjure up George, lonely and torn by conflicting emotions; for to her, long paralysed by Worsted Skeynes, and ignorant of the facts, the proportions of the struggle in her son’s soul appeared Titanic; her mother instinct was not deceived as to the strength of his passion.  Strange and conflicting were the sensations with which she awaited the result; at one moment thinking, ’It is madness; he must promise—­it is too awful!’ at another, ’Ah! but how can he, if he loves her so?  It is impossible; and she, too—­ah! how awful it is!’