“So that she is relieved at his absence.”

“Just so, and it is better so to leave it; I should be only too happy to keep her with me waiting for him, only I had rather she did not know it.”

“My dear friend!” And again Caroline thought of Magnum Bonum.  All the evening she said to herself that Sydney showed no objection to medical students, when she was looking over the Engelberg photographs with John, who had been far more her companion in the mountain rambles they recalled than had Jock in his half-recovered state.

The mother could not help feeling a little pang of jealousy as she owned to herself that the Friar was a very fine-looking youth, with the air of a university man, and of one used to good society, and that he did look most perilously happy.  He was the next thing to her own son, but not quite the same, and she half repented of her candour to Mrs. Evelyn, and wished that the keen, sensitive face and soldierly figure could be there to reassert their influence.

There ensued a cheerful, pleasant Saturday, which did much to restore the ordinary tone between the old friends and to take off the sense of strangeness.  It was evident that Lord Fordham had insensibly become much more the real head and master of the house than at the time when the Brownlow party had last been there, and that he had taken on him much more of the duties of his position than he had then seemed capable of fulfilling.  It might cost much effort, but he had ceased to be the mere invalid, and had come to take his part thoroughly and effectively, and to win trust and confidence.  It was strange to think how Babie could ever have called him a muff merely to be pitied.

The Sundays at Fordham were always delightful.  The little Church was as near perfection as might be.  It was satisfactory to see that Fordham’s gentleness and courtesy had dispelled all the clouds, and Barbara had returned to her ordinary manner; perhaps a little more sedate and gentle than usual, and towards him she was curiously submissive, as if she had a certain awe of the tenderness she had rejected.

After the short afternoon service, Sydney waited to exercise her choir once more in their musical duties; but Babie, hearing there was to be no rehearsal of the flower-strewing, declared she had enough of classes at home, and should take Lina for a stroll on the sunny terrace among the crocuses, where Fordham joined them till warned that the sun was getting low.

One there was who would have been glad of an invitation to join in the practice, but who did not receive one.  John lingered with Allen about the gardens till the latter disposed of himself on a seat with a cigar beyond the public gaze.  Then saying something about seeing whether the stream promised well for fishing, John betook himself to the bank of the river, one of the many Avons, probably with a notion that by the merest accident he might be within distance at the break-up of the choir practice.