‘I cannot say.’  He paused, then continued with some emotion, ’I would gladly have had your sympathy.  Perhaps I fail to see the whole matter in the same light as yourselves, but it seems to me that in the step I have taken there is nothing that should cause lasting difference between us.  I involve the family in no kind of disgrace—­that, I suppose, you admit?’

Mrs. Rossall made no answer.  Mr. Athel moved uneasily upon his chair, coughed, seemed about to speak, but in the end said nothing.

‘I am afraid I shall not be able to leave England with you,’ continued Wilfrid, rising.  ’But that fortunately need cause no change in your plans.’

Mr. Athel was annoyed at his sister’s behaviour.  He had looked to her for mediation; clearly she would offer nothing of the kind.  She was wrapping herself in a cloak of offended dignity; she had withdrawn from the debate.

‘Come with me to my room,’ he said moving from his chair.

’I think it will be better to have no further discussion, Wilfrid replied firmly, ‘at all events to-night.’

‘As you please,’ said his father, shortly.

He went from the room, and Wilfrid, without further speech to his aunt, presently followed.

CHAPTER V

THE SHADOW OF HOME

The house which was the end of Emily’s journey was situated two miles outside the town of Dunfield, on the high road going southward, just before it enters upon a rising tract of common land known as the Heath.  It was one of a row of two-storied dwellings, built of glazed brick, each with a wide projecting window on the right hand of the front door, and with a patch of garden railed in from the road, the row being part of a straggling colony which is called Banbrigg.  Immediately opposite these houses stood an ecclesiastical edifice of depressing appearance, stone-built, wholly without ornament, presenting a corner to the highway, a chapel-of-ease for worshippers unable to go as far as Dunfield in the one direction or the village of Pendal in the other.  Scattered about were dwelling-houses old and new; the former being cottages of the poorest and dirtiest kind, the latter brick structures of the most unsightly form, evidently aiming at constituting themselves into a thoroughfare, and, in point of fact, already rejoicing in the name of Regent Street.  There was a public-house, or rather, as it frankly styled itself in large letters on the window, a dram-shop; and there were two or three places for the sale of very miscellaneous articles, exhibiting the same specimens of discouraging stock throughout the year.  At no season, and under no advantage of sky, was Banbrigg a delectable abode.  Though within easy reach of country which was not without rural aspects, it was marked too unmistakably with the squalor of a manufacturing district.  Its existence impressed one as casual; it was a mere bit of Dunfield got away