siness mind.

How did he stand now, as his motor slipped out of Oniton and breasted
the great round hills? Margaret had heard a certain rumour, but was all
right. She had forgiven him, God bless her, and he felt the manlier for
it. Charles and Evie had not heard it, and never must hear. No more must
Paul. Over his children he felt great tenderness, which he did not try
to track to a cause; Mrs. Wilcox was too far back in his life. He did
not connect her with the sudden aching love that he felt for Evie. Poor
little Evie! he trusted that Cahill would make her a decent husband.

And Margaret? How did she stand?

She had several minor worries. Clearly her sister had heard something.
She dreaded meeting her in town. And she was anxious about Leonard, for
whom they certainly were responsible. Nor ought Mrs. Bast to starve. But
the main situation had not altered. She still loved Henry. His actions,
not his disposition, had disappointed her, and she could bear that. And
she loved her future home. Standing up in the car, just where she had
leapt from it two days before, she gazed back with deep emotion upon
Oniton. Besides the Grange and the Castle keep, she could now pick out
the church and the black-and-white gables of the George. There was the
bridge, and the river nibbling its green peninsula. She could even
see the bathing-shed, but while she was looking for Charles's new
spring-board, the forehead of the hill rose and hid the whole scene.

She never saw it again. Day and night the river flows down into England,
day after day the sun retreats into the Welsh mountains, and the tower
chimes, See the Conquering Hero. But the Wilcoxes have no part in the
place, nor in any place. It is not their names that recur in the parish
register. It is not their ghosts that sigh among the alders at evening.
They have swept into the valley and swept out of it, leaving a little
dust and a little money behind.

CHAPTER XXX

Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford. He had moved out of
college, and was contemplating the Universe, or such portions of it as
concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings in Long Wall. He was not
concerned with much. When a young man is untroubled by passions and
sincerely indifferent to public opinion his outlook is necessarily
limited. Tibby wished neither to strengthen the position of the rich nor
to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms
nodding behind the mildly