Hilda shook her head.  Then she said:  “Well, at least, mother, not that sort of trouble.  I told father truly; he’s been picked for special service.”

“Well, then, what is it?” Mrs. Lessing was a trifle impatient.

“Mother,” said Hilda, “I’ve known that he has not been happy ever since his arrival in France, but I’ve never properly understood why.  Peter is queer in some ways, you know.  You remember that sermon of his?  He won’t be content with things; he’s always worrying.  And now he writes dreadfully.  He says...”  She hesitated.  Then, suddenly, she pulled out the letter.  “Listen, mother,” she said, and read what Peter had written in the club until the end. “’I am going to eat and drink with publicans and sinners; maybe I shall find my Master still there.’”

If Langton could have seen Mrs. Lessing he would have smiled that cynical smile of his with much satisfaction.  She was frankly horrified—­rendered, in fact, almost speechless.

“Hilda!” she exclaimed.  “What a thing to write to you!  But what does he mean?  Has he forgotten that he is a clergyman?  Why, it’s positively blasphemous!  He is speaking of Christ, I suppose.  My poor girl, he must be mad.  Surely you see that, dear.”

Hilda stared on into the fire, and made no reply.  Her mother hardly needed one, “Has he met another woman, Hilda?” she demanded.

“I don’t know; he doesn’t say so,” said Hilda miserably.  “But anyhow, I don’t see that that matters.”

“Not matter, girl!  Are you mad too?  He is your fiance, isn’t he?  Really, I think I must speak to your father.”

Hilda turned her head slowly, and mother and daughter looked at each other.  Mrs. Lessing was a woman of the world, but she was a good mother, and she read in her daughter’s eyes what every mother has to read sooner or later.  It was as one woman to another, and not as mother to daughter, that she continued lamely:  “Well, Hilda, what do you make of it all?  What are you going to do?”

The girl looked away again, and a silence fell between them.  Then she said, speaking in short, slow sentences: 

“I will tell you what I make of it, mother.  Peter’s gone beyond me, I think, now, that I have always feared a little that he might.  Of course, he’s impetuous and headstrong, but it is more than that.  He feels differently from me, from all of us.  I can see that, though I don’t understand him a bit.  I thought” (her voice faltered) “he loved me more.  He knows how I wanted him to get on in the Church, and how I would have helped him.  But that’s nothing to him, or next to nothing.  I think he doesn’t love me at all, mother, and never really did.”

Mrs. Lessing threw her head back.  “Then he’s a fool, my dear,” she said emphatically.  “You’re worth loving; you know it.  I should think no more about him, Hilda.”

Hilda’s hands tightened round her knees.  “I can’t do that,” she said.