moves as one
from whom the inner life has been withdrawn.

XXV

"I am afraid," said Agnes, unfolding a letter that she had received in
the morning, "that things go far from satisfactorily at Cadover."

The three were alone at supper. It was the June of Rickie's second year
at Sawston.

"Indeed?" said Herbert, who took a friendly interest. "In what way?

"Do you remember us talking of Stephen--Stephen Wonham, who by an odd
coincidence--"

"Yes. Who wrote last year to that miserable failure Varden. I do."

"It is about him."

"I did not like the tone of his letter."

Agnes had made her first move. She waited for her husband to reply to
it. But he, though full of a painful curiosity, would not speak. She
moved again.

"I don't think, Herbert, that Aunt Emily, much as I like her, is the
kind of person to bring a young man up. At all events the results have
been disastrous this time."

"What has happened?"

"A tangle of things." She lowered her voice. "Drink."

"Dear! Really! Was Mrs. Failing fond of him?"

"She used to be. She let him live at Cadover ever since he was a little
boy. Naturally that cannot continue."

Rickie never spoke.

"And now he has taken to be violent and rude," she went on.

"In short, a beggar on horseback. Who is he? Has he got relatives?"

"She has always been both father and mother to him. Now it must all come
to an end. I blame her--and she blames herself--for not being severe
enough. He has grown up without fixed principles. He has always followed
his inclinations, and one knows the result of that."

Herbert assented. "To me Mrs. Failing's course is perfectly plain. She
has a certain responsibility. She must pay the youth's passage to one of
the colonies, start him handsomely in some business, and then break off
all communications."

"How funny! It is exactly what she is going to do."

"I shall then consider that she has behaved in a thoroughly honourable
manner." He held out his plate for gooseberries. "His letter to Varden
was neither helpful nor sympathetic, and, if written at all, it ought
to have been both. I am not in the least surprised to learn that he has
turned out badly. When you write next, would you tell her how sorry I
am?"

"Indeed I will. Two years ago, when she was already a little anxious,
she did so wish you could undertake him.

"I could not alter a grown man." But in his heart he thought he could,
and smiled at his sister amiably. "Terrible,