ohn, still overwhelmed
by this amazing development.

"Well, to-day won't do any harm----"

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. The danger with your mother has always been to stop her
inclinations. Indulge 'em all the time if you can, let her say what she
wishes, do what she wishes. If you were to carry her out of doors
against her will, why it would do a great deal of harm indeed--but if
she wants to go she'll see that she's up to it. It may be the best thing
for her. She could have gone out heaps of times in the last thirty years
if she'd wished to!"

Lord John rubbed his forehead--

"It's a great relief to hear you say that, Christopher. I didn't know
how we were going to get out of it. She was so determined this
morning----"

He broke off--"You're _sure_ it won't do any harm?" he said again.

"I'm sure," said Christopher.

"There's something," Lord John went on again, "dreadfully on my mother's
mind--She seems to feel that, in some way or other, she was responsible
for his accident. I can't get at the bottom of it all and of course she
won't tell me--she never tells me things. Perhaps you can get at it. I
saw Rachel yesterday."

"Yes?"

"She's very fair about it all. Must be having a very hard time. She was
glad to see me, I think, but--" he added a little wistfully--"I've never
been anything to her since her marriage.

"She just seemed not to want me after that, and I'd been a good deal to
her before. When one's getting old, Christopher, we old bachelors, we
begin to notice that nobody wants us very much."

Christopher looked at him--Yes, John Beaminster had changed in the last
year. Had he himself, he wondered, also changed?

"Yes," he said, smiling. "But I've been an old bachelor, Beaminster,
for years and years and I see no likelihood of your ever being one. You
get younger with every year, I believe."

"This accident to Roddy," John said slowly, as though he were thinking
it all out, "has upset us all. It seems so terrible, happening to
him ... much worse for him ... and then Rachel--But look here, I know
you've got to go up to my mother, I won't keep you a minute--But there's
a thing I've got to talk to you about--It's been on my conscience now for
ages.... I've not known what to do ... at last I've made up my mind."

John Beaminster had made up his mind to do something that he hated! To
Christopher perhaps more than to anyone else in the world this was a
revelation of the most vital, the most mov