fort; all the more bitter for
that it was an entirely unexpected call upon them. During those six years
abroad probably not a day had passed without visions of Great Keynes, and
the pleasant and familiar rooms and garden of their own house, and mental
rehearsals of their return. The shock of the night before too had been
emphasised by the horror of the cold morning light creeping through the
empty windows on to the cruel heaps within. The garden too, seen in the
dim morning, with its trampled lawns and wrecked flower-beds heaped with
withered sunflowers, bell-blossoms and all the rich August growth, with
the earthen flower-bowls smashed, the stone balls on the gate overturned,
and the laurels at the corner uprooted--all this was a horrible pain to
Isabel, to whom the garden was very near as dear and familiar as her own
room. So it was a silent and sorrowful ride; and Anthony's heart rose in
relief as at last up the grey village-street he saw the crowded roofs of
Stanfield Place rise over the churchyard wall.

Their welcome from Mr. Buxton went far to compensate for all.

"My dear boy," he said, "or, my dear father, as I should call you in
private, you do not know what happiness is mine to-day. It is a great
thing to have a priest again; but, if you will allow me to say so, it is
a greater to have my friend--and what a sister you have upstairs!"

They were in Mr. Buxton's own little room on the ground-floor, and Isabel
had gone to rest until supper.

Anthony told him of the grim surprise that had awaited them at Great
Keynes. "So you must forgive my sister if she is a little sad."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Buxton, "I had heard from Mrs. Carroll last night
when she arrived here. But there was no time to warn you. I had expected
you to-day, though Mrs. Carroll did not."

(Anthony had sent a man straight from Rye to Stanfield.)

"But Mistress Isabel, as I shall venture to call her, must do what she
can with this house and garden. I need not say how wholly it is hers. And
I shall call you Anthony," he added--"in public, at least. And, for
strangers, you are just here as my guest; and you shall be called
Capell--a sound name; and you shall be Catholics too; though you are no
priest, of course, in public--and you have returned from the Continent. I
hold it is no use to lie when you can be found out. I do not know what
your conscience is, Father Anthony; but, for myself, I count us Catholics
to be _in statu belli_ now; and th