Just before twelve o’clock he was left alone for five minutes, and a servant brought in a note.  Howard opened it, and taking a sheet of paper, began to write.  At the hour a youth appeared, of very boyish aspect, curly-haired, fresh-looking, ingenuous.  Howard greeted him with a smile.  “Half a minute, Jack!” he said.  “There’s the paper—­not the Sportsman, I’m afraid, but you can console yourself while I just finish this note.”  The boy sat down by the fire, but instead of taking the paper, drew a solemn-looking cat, which was sitting regarding the hearth, on to his knee, and began playing with it.  Presently Howard threw his pen down.  “Come along,” he said.  The boy, still carrying the cat, came and sat down beside him.  The lesson proceeded as before, but there was a slight difference in Howard’s manner of speech, as of an uncle with a favourite nephew.  At the end, he pushed the paper into the boy’s hand, and said, “No, that isn’t good enough, you know; it’s all too casual—­it isn’t a bit like Latin:  you don’t do me credit!” He spoke incisively enough, but shook his head with a smile.  The boy said nothing, but got up, vaguely smiling, and holding the cat tucked under his arm—­a charming picture of healthy and indifferent youth.  Then he said in a rich infantile voice, “Oh, it’s all right.  I didn’t do myself justice this time.  You shall see!”

At this moment the old servant came in and asked Howard if he would take lunch.

“Yes; I won’t go into Hall,” said Howard.  “Lunch for two—­you can stay and lunch with me, Jack; and I will give you a lecture about your sins.”

The boy said, “Yes, thanks very much; I’d love to.”

Jack Sandys was a pupil of Howard’s in whom he had a special interest.  He was the son of Frank Sandys, the Vicar of the Somersetshire parish where Mrs. Graves, Howard’s aunt, lived at the Manor-house.  Frank Sandys was a cousin of Mrs. Graves’ deceased husband.  She had advised the Vicar to send Jack to Beaufort, and had written specially commending him to Howard’s care.  But the boy had needed little commendation.  From the first moment that Jack Sandys had appeared, smiling and unembarrassed, in Howard’s room, a relation that was almost filial and paternal had sprung up between them.  He had treated Howard from the outset with an innocent familiarity, and asked him the most direct questions.  He was not a particularly intellectual youth, though he had some vague literary interests; but he was entirely healthy, good, and quite irresistibly charming in his naivete and simplicity.  Howard had a dislike of all sentimentality, but the suppressed paternal instinct which was strong in him had been awakened; and though he made no emotional advances, he found himself strangely drawn to the boy, with a feeling for which he could not wholly account.  He did not care for Jack’s athletic interests; his tastes and mental processes were obscure to him.  Howard’s own nature was at once intellectual