‘Thank you!  Don’t you enjoy the sunshine after London?’

‘Indeed I do!’

He stepped back and signed to the driver.  Sidwell bent her head and was out of sight.

But the carriage was visible for some distance, and even when he could no longer see it he heard the horse’s hoofs on the hard road.  Long after the last sound had died away his heart continued to beat painfully, and he breathed as if recovering from a hard run.

How beautiful were these lanes and hills, even in mid-winter!  Once more he sang aloud in his joyous solitude.  The hope he had nourished was not unreasonable; his boldness justified itself.  Yes, he was one of the men who succeed, and the life before him would be richer for all the mistakes and miseries through which he had passed.  Thirty, forty, fifty—­why, twenty years hence he would be in the prime of manhood, with perhaps yet another twenty years of mental and bodily vigour.  One of the men who succeed!

CHAPTER II

On the morning after her journey down from London, Mrs. Warricombe awoke with the conviction that she had caught a cold.  Her health was in general excellent, and she had no disposition to nurse imaginary ailments, but when some slight disorder broke the routine of her life she made the most of it, enjoying—­much as children do—­the importance with which for the time it invested her.  At such seasons she was wont to regard herself with a mildly despondent compassion, to feel that her family and her friends held her of slight account; she spoke in a tone of conscious resignation, often with a forgiving smile.  When the girls redoubled their attentions, and soothed her with gentle words, she would close her eyes and sigh, seeming to remind them that they would know her value when she was no more.

‘You are hoarse, mother,’ Sidwell said to her, when they met at breakfast.

’Am I, dear?  You know I felt rather afraid of the journey.  I hope I shan’t be laid up.’

Sidwell advised her not to leave the house to-day.  Having seen the invalid comfortably established in an upper room, she went into the city on business which could not be delayed.  On her way occurred the meeting with Peak, but of this, on her return, she made no mention.  Mother and daughter had luncheon upstairs, and Sidwell was full of affectionate solicitude.

‘This afternoon you had better lie down for an hour or two,’ she said.

’Do you think so?  Just drop a line to father, and warn him that we may kept here for some time.’

‘Shall I send for Dr Endacott?’

‘Just as you like, dear.’

But Mrs. Warricombe had eaten such an excellent lunch, that Sidwell could not feel uneasy.

’We’ll see how you are this evening.  At all events, it will be safer for you not to go downstairs.  If you lie quiet for an hour or two, I can look for those pamphlets that father wants.’