“Aren’t you very late, Dad?” said Innocent then, going to meet him—­“I was beginning to be quite anxious!”

“Were you?  Poor little one!  I’m all right!  I had business—­I was kept longer than I expected—­” Here he turned quickly to Robin—­ “Unharness, boy!—­unharness!—­and come in to supper!”

“Where’s Landon?” asked Robin.

“Landon?  Oh, I’ve left him in the town.”

He pulled off his driving-gloves, and unbuttoned his overcoat—­ then strode into the house.  Innocent followed him—­she was puzzled by his look and manner, and her heart beat with a vague sense of fear.  There was something about the old man that was new and strange to her.  She could not define it, but it filled her mind with a curious and inexplicable uneasiness.  Priscilla, who was setting the dishes on the table in the room where the cloth was laid for supper, had the same uncomfortable impression when she saw him enter.  His face was unusually pale and drawn, and the slight stoop of age in his otherwise upright figure seemed more pronounced than usual.  He drew up his chair to the table and sat down,—­then ruffling his fine white hair over his brow with one hand, looked round him with an evidently forced smile.

“Anxious about me, were you, child?” he said, as Innocent took her place beside him.  “Well, well! you need not have given me a thought!  I—­I was all right—­all right!  I made a bit of a bargain in the town—­but the prices were high—­and Landon—­”

He broke off suddenly and stared in front of him with strange fixed eyeballs.

Innocent and Priscilla looked at one another in alarm.  There was a moment’s tense stillness,—­then Innocent said in rather a trembling voice—­

“Yes, Dad?  You were saying something about Landon—­”

The stony glare faded from his eyes and he looked at her with a more natural expression.

“Landon?  Did I speak of him?  Oh yes!—­Landon met with some fellows he knew and decided to spend the evening with them—­he asked me for a night off—­and I gave it to him.  Yes—­I—­I gave it to him.”

Just then Robin entered.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed, gaily—­“At supper?  Don’t begin without me!  I say, Uncle, is Landon coming back to-night?”

Jocelyn turned upon him sharply.

“No!” he answered, in so fierce a tone that Robin stood amazed—­ “Why do you all keep on asking me about Landon?  He loves drink more than life, and he’s having all he wants to-night.  I’ve let him off work to-morrow.”

Robin was silent for a moment out of sheer surprise.

“Oh well, that’s all right, if you don’t mind,” he said, at last—­ “We’re pretty busy—­but I daresay we can manage without him.”

“I should think so!” and Hugo gave a short laugh of scorn—­“Briar Farm would have come to a pretty pass if it could not get on without a man like Landon!”

There was another silent pause.

Priscilla gave an anxious side-glance at Innocent’s troubled face, and decided to relieve the tension by useful commonplace talk.