moment of emotion, and was satisfied. She left the room as she had
come, the candle casting exaggerated shadows of herself upon the walls
where Carnaby's bats and fishing rods and sporting prints hung.

It is sad to be old as Mrs. de Tracy was old, but her age was of her
own making, a shrinkage of the heart, a drying up of the wells of
feeling that need not have been.

"I should be better out of the way," her bitterness said within her,
and alas! it was true. Her great, gaunt room seemed very lonely, very
full of shadows when she returned to it. Rupert, who always slept at
her bedside, awaited her. Disturbed at this unwonted hour, he stirred
in his basket, wheezed and gurgled, turned round and round and could
not get comfortable, whined, and looked up in his mistress's face. She
stood watching him with a sort of grim pity, and, strangely enough,
bestowed upon him the caress she had not found for her grandson.

"Poor Rupert! You are getting too old, like your mistress! Your
departure, like hers, will be a sorrow to no one!" Rupert seemed to
wheeze an asthmatical consent, and presently he snuggled down in his
basket and went to sleep.

XXV

THE BELLS OF STOKE REVEL

On Sunday morning Robinette and Lavendar were both ready for church,
by some strange coincidence, half an hour too soon. He was standing at
the door as she came down into the hall. Mrs. de Tracy and Miss
Smeardon were nowhere to be seen; even Carnaby was invisible, but the
shrill, infuriated yelping of the Prince Charles from the drawing room
indicated his whereabouts only too plainly.

"We're much too early," said Robinette, glancing at the clock.

"Shall we walk through the buttercup meadow, then--you and I?" asked
Lavendar. His voice was low, and Robinette answered very softly. She
wore a white dress that morning without a touch of colour.

"I couldn't wear black to-day for Nurse," she said, in answer to his
glance, "but I couldn't wear any colour, either."

"You're as white as the plum tree was!" said Lavendar. "I remember
thinking that it looked like a bride." Robinette made no reply. He
ventured to look up at her as he spoke, and she was smiling although
her lip quivered and her eyes were full of tears. Lavendar's heart
beat uncomfortably fast as they walked through the meadow towards the
stile which led into the churchyard.

"It's too soon to go in yet," he said. "The bells haven't begun."

"Let's stop here. It's cool in the shadow