It was a morning of sunny showers; one moment the stones were covered with shining moisture, and the next were steaming themselves dry under unclouded rays.  Heedless whither he went, so he did but move quickly enough, Will crossed the river, and struck southward, till he found himself by Clapham Junction.  The sun had now triumphed; the day would be brilliant.  Feeling already better for his exercise, he stood awhile reflecting, and decided at length to go by rail into the country.  He might perhaps call on the Pomfrets at Ashtead; that would depend upon his mood.  At all events he would journey in that direction.

It was some three months since he had seen the Pomfrets.  He had a standing invitation to the pleasant little house, where he was always received with simple, cordial hospitality.  About eleven o’clock, after a ramble about Ashtead Common, he pushed open the garden wicket, and knocked at the door under the leafy porch.  So quiet was the house, that he half feared he would find nobody at home; but the servant at once led him in, and announced him at the door of her master’s sanctum.

“Warburton?” cried a high, hearty voice, before he had entered.  “Good fellow.  Every day this week I’ve been wanting to ask you to come; but I was afraid; it’s so long since we saw you, I fancied you must have been bored the last time you were here.”

A small, thin, dry-featured man, with bald occiput and grizzled beard, Ralph Pomfret sat deep in an easy chair, his legs resting on another.  Humour and kindliness twinkled in his grey eye.  The room, which was full of books, had a fair view of meadows, and hill.  Garden perfumes floated in at the open window.

“Kind fellow, to come like this,” he went on.  “You see that the old enemy has a grip on me.  He pinches, he pinches.  He’ll get at my vitals one of these days, no doubt.  And I’ve not even the satisfaction of having got my gout in an honourable way.  If it had come to me from a fine old three-bottle ancestor!  But I, who never had a grandfather, and hardly tasted wine till I was thirty years old—­why, I feel ashamed to call myself gouty.  Sit down, my wife’s at church.  Strange thing that people still go to church—­but they do, you know.  Force of habit, force of habit.  Rosamund’s with her.”

“Miss Elvan?” asked Warburton, with surprise.

“Ah, yes I forgot you didn’t know she was here.  Came back with those friends of hers from Egypt a week ago.  She has no home in England now; don’t know where she will decide to live.”

“Have you seen Norbert lately?” continued Mr. Pomfret, all in one breath.  “He’s too busy to come out to Ashtead, perhaps too prosperous.  But no, I won’t say that; I won’t really think it.  A good lad, Norbert—­better, I suspect, than his work.  There’s a strange thing now; a painter without enthusiasm for art.  He used to have a little; more than a little; but it’s all gone.  Or so it seems to me.”