, and the misty moor loomed with uncertain shapes; but she
could look before her and feel that she went towards security and
brightness.

Augustine and his mother both studied during the day, the same studies,
for Lady Channice, to a great extent, shared her son's scholarly
pursuits. From his boyhood--a studious, grave, yet violent little boy he
had been, his fits of passionate outbreak quelled, as he grew older, by
the mere example of her imperturbability beside him--she had thus shared
everything. She had made herself his tutor as well as his guardian
angel. She was more tutor, more guardian angel, than mother.

Their mental comradeship was full of mutual respect. And though
Augustine was not of the religious temperament, though his mother's
instinct told her that in her lighted church he would be a respectful
looker-on rather than a fellow-worshipper, though they never spoke of
religion, just as they seldom kissed, Augustine's growing absorption in
metaphysics tinged their friendship with a religious gravity and
comprehension.

On three mornings in the week Lady Channice had a class for the older
village girls; she sewed, read and talked with them, and was fond of
them all. These girls, their placing in life, their marriages and
babies, were her most real interest in the outer world. During the rest
of the day she gardened, and read whatever books Augustine might be
reading. It was the mother and son's habit thus to work apart and to
discuss work in the evenings.

Today, when her girls were gone, she found herself very lonely.
Augustine was out riding and in her room she tried to occupy herself,
fearing her own thoughts. It was past twelve when she heard the sound of
his horse's hoofs on the gravel before the door and, throwing a scarf
over her hair, she ran down to meet him.

The hall door at Charlock House, under a heavy portico, looked out upon
a circular gravel drive bordered by shrubberies and enclosed by high
walls; beyond the walls and gates was the high-road. An interval of
sunlight had broken into the chill Autumn day: Augustine had ridden
bareheaded and his gold hair shone as the sun fell upon it. He looked,
in his stately grace, like an equestrian youth on a Greek frieze. And,
as was usual with his mother, her appreciation of Augustine's nobility
and fineness passed at once into a pang: so beautiful; so noble; and so
shadowed. She stood, her black scarf about her face and shoulders, and
smiled at him