decided to disregard the boy’s seeming qualifications, and, after having him schooled abroad for the sake of modern languages, to put him early into commerce.  If Piers were marked out for better things, this discipline could do him no harm.  And to all appearances, the course had been a wise one.  Piers had as yet given no cause for complaint.  In wearying of trade, in aiming at something more liberal, he claimed no more than his rights.

With silent satisfaction, Jerome watched the boy’s endeavours, his heart warming when he received one of those well-worded and dutiful, yet by no means commonplace letters, which came from Geneva and from London.  On Piers he put the hope of his latter day; and it gladdened him to think that this, his only promising child, was the offspring of the union which he could recall with tenderness.

When Mrs. Otway had withdrawn with her sour dignity, the old man sighed and lost himself in melancholy musing.  The house was, as usual, very still, and from without the only sound was that of the beck, leaping down over its stony ledges.  Jerome loved this sound.  It tuned his thoughts; it saved him from many a fit of ill-humour.  It harmonised with the melody of Dante’s verses, fit accompaniment to many a passage of profound feeling, of noble imagery.  Even now he had been brooding the anguish of Maestro Adamo who hears for ever

    Li ruscelletti che de’ verdi colli
    Del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno—­”

and the music of the Tuscan fountains blended with the voice of this moorland stream.

There was a knock at the door; the maid-servant handed him a letter; it came from Piers.  The father read it, and, after a few lines, with grave visage.  Piers began by saying that, a day or two ago, he had all but resolved to run down to Hawes, for he had something very serious to speak about; on the whole, it seemed better to make the communication in writing.

“I have abandoned the examination, and all thought of the Civil Service.  If I invented reasons for this, you would not believe them, and you would think ill of me.  The best way is to tell you the plain truth, and run the risk of being thought a simpleton, or something worse.  I have been in great trouble, have gone through a bad time.  Some weeks ago there came to stay here a girl of eighteen or nineteen, the daughter of Dr. Lowndes Derwent (whose name perhaps you know).  She is very beautiful, and I was unlucky enough—­if I ought to use such a phrase—­to fall in love with her.  I won’t try to explain what this meant to me; you wouldn’t have patience to read it; but it stopped my studies, utterly overthrew my work.  I was all but ill; I suffered horribly.  It was my first such experience; I hope it may be the last—­in that form.  Indeed, I believe it will, for I can’t imagine that I shall ever feel towards anyone else in the same way, and—­you will smile, no doubt—­I have a conviction that Irene Derwent will remain my ideal as long as I live.”