little more. Lessing would certainly
have been at the steamer to see him off, except for being so much taken
up with adjustments of the business made necessary by Peter's going out
of it; and his sister Ellen never went out in foggy weather, seldom so
far from the house in any case. Besides, she declared that if she once
saw Peter disappearing down the widening water she should never be able
to rid herself of the notion of his being quite overwhelmed by it,
whereas if he sent on his trunks the day before, and walked quietly out
in the morning with his suitcase, she could persuade herself that he had
merely run down to Bloombury for a few days and would be back on Monday.
And having managed his leave-taking as he did most personal matters, to
please Ellen, who though she had never been credited with an
imagination, seemed likely to develop one in the exigencies of getting
along without Peter, he had no sense of having done anything other than
to please himself. He found a man to carry his suitcase as soon as he
was out of the house, and walked the whole way to the steamer; for if
one has been ordered out of all activity there is still a certain
satisfaction in going out on your own feet.

It was an extremely ill-considered day, wet fog drawn up to the high
shouldering roofs and shrugged off, like a nervous woman's shawl. But
whether it sulked over his departure or smiled on him for remembrance,
would not have made any difference to Peter, who, whatever the papers
said of the reason for his going abroad, knew that there would be
neither shade nor shine for him, nor principalities nor powers until he
had found again the House of the Shining Walls. As soon as he had
bestowed his belongings in his stateroom, he went out on the side of the
deck farthest from the groups of leave-taking, and stood staring down,
as if he considered whether the straightest route might not lie in that
direction, into the greasy, shallow hollows of the harbour water, at the
very moment when the Burton Hendersons, over their very late coffee, had
discovered the item of his departure.

Mrs. Henderson balanced her spoon on the edge of her cup while her
husband read the paragraph aloud to her.

"You don't suppose," she said, as if it might be an interesting even if
regrettable possibility, "that _I_--that our affair--had anything to do
with it?"

"If it did," admitted her husband, with the air of not thinking it
likely, but probably served him righ