s dark red walls covered
from floor to ceiling with books, its wide stone fireplace, its soft,
heavy carpets, its wonderfully comfortable armchairs. It seemed to him
the very perfection of that spirit of orderly comfort and luxurious
simplicity for which he had so earnestly longed in New Zealand. He sat
in that room for hours, alone, thinking, wondering, puzzling, devising
new plans for Robin's surrender and rejecting them as soon as they were
formed.

He was sitting by the fire now, hearing the coals click as they fell
into the golden furnace that awaited them. He was comparing the
incidents of the morning with those of the preceding Sunday, and he
knew that things were approaching a crisis. Clare had scarcely spoken
to him for three days. Garrett and Robin had not said a word beyond a
casual good-morning. They were ignoring him, continuing their daily
life as though he did not exist at all. He remembered that he had felt
his welcome a fortnight before a little cold--it seemed rapturous
compared with the present state of things.

They had driven to church that morning in state. No one had exchanged
a word during the whole drive. Clare had sat quietly, in solemn
magnificence, without moving an eyelid. They had moved from the
carriage to the church in majestic procession, watched by an admiring
cluster of townspeople. He had liked Clare's fine bearing and Robin's
carriage; there was no doubt that they supported family traditions
worthily, but he felt that, in the eyes of the world, he scarcely
counted at all. It was a cold and over-decorated church, with an air
of wealth and lack of all warm emotions that was exactly characteristic
of its congregation. Harry thought that he had never seen a gathering
of more unresponsive people. An excellent choir sang Stainer in B flat
with perfect precision and fitting respect, and the hymns and psalms
were murmured with proper decorum. The clergyman who had come to tea
on the day after Harry's arrival preached a carefully calculated and
excellently worded sermon. Although his text was the publican's "Lord,
be merciful to me, a sinner," it was evident that his address was
tinged with the Pharisee's self-congratulations.

A little gathering was formed in the porch after the service, and Mrs.
le Terry, magnificent in green silk and an enormous hat, was the only
person who took any interest in Harry, and she was looking over his
head during the conversation in order, ap