Mrs. Ormonde had not seen Egremont for some six weeks.  The tone of the one or two letters she had received from him did not reassure her against misgivings excited at his latest visit.  To her he wrote far more truly than to Mr. Newthorpe, and she knew, what the others did not, that he was anything but satisfied with the course he had taken since Christmas in his lecturing.  ‘After Easter,’ was her advice, ’return to your plain instruction.  It is more fruitful of profit both to your hearers and to yourself.’  But Egremont had begun to doubt whether after Easter he should lecture at all.

‘Mr. Bunce’s little girl is coming to me again,’ she said, in the talk before dinner.  ’You know the poor little thing has been in hospital for three wreks?’

‘I haven’t heard of it,’ Egremont replied.  ’I’m sorry that I haven’t really come to know Bunce.  I had a short talk with him a month ago, and he told me then that his children were well.  But he is so reticent that I have feared to try further, to get his confidence.’

‘Why, Bunce is the aggressive atheist, isn’t he?’ said Mr. Newthorpe.

Mrs. Ormonde smiled and nodded.

‘I fear he is a man of misfortunes,’ she said.  ’My friend at the hospital tells me that his wife was small comfort to him whilst she lived.  She left him three young children to look after, and the eldest of them—­she is about nine—­is always ill.  There seems to be no one to tend them whilst their father is at work.’

‘Who will bring the child here?’ Egremont asked.

’She came by herself last time.  But I hear she is still very weak; perhaps someone will have to be sent from the hospital.’

During dinner, the library was discussed.  Egremont reported that workmen were already busy in the school-rooms and in Grail’s house.

‘I’m in correspondence,’ he said, ’with a man I knew some years ago, a scientific fellow, who has heard somehow of my undertakings, and wrote asking if he might help by means of natural science.  Perhaps it might be well to begin a course of that kind in one of the rooms.  It would appeal far more to the Lambeth men than what I am able to offer.’

This project passed under review, then Egremont himself led the talk to widely different things, and thereafter resisted any tendency it showed to return upon his special affairs.  Annabel was rather silent.

An hour after dinner, Egremont had to depart to catch his train.  He took leave of his friends very quietly.

‘We shall come and see the library as soon as it is open,’ said Mr. Newthorpe.

Egremont smiled merely.

Mr. Newthorpe remarked that Egremont seemed disappointed with the results of his work.

‘I should uncommonly like to hear one of these new lectures,’ he said.  ’I expect there’s plenty of sound matter in them.  My fear is lest they are over the heads of his audience.’

‘I fear,’ said Mrs. Ormonde, ’it is waste both of his time and that of the men.  But the library will cheer him; there is something solid, at all events.’