So the Duke of Paddington sat in the library of his house in Chelsea. It was a Saturday afternoon. There was a matinée, and Mary had rushed off after an early lunch. The duke felt very much alone. He had no particular engagement that afternoon. His correspondence he had finished during the morning, and he was now a little at a loss how to occupy his time. At the moment life seemed rather hollow and empty, the very aspect of his comfortable room was somehow distasteful, and, though he did not feel ill, he had a definite sensation of physical mis-ease.
"I must have some exercise," he thought to himself. "I suppose it's a touch of liver."
He debated whether he should go to the German gymnasium for an hour, to swim at the Bath Club, or merely to walk through the town. He decided for the walk. Thought and pedestrianism went well together, and the other two alternatives were not conducive to thought. He wanted to think. He wanted to examine his own sensations, to analyse the state of his mind, to find out from himself and for himself if he really were unhappy and dissatisfied with his life, if he had made a frightful mistake or no. It was late autumn. The weather was neither warm nor cold. There was no fog nor rain, but everything was grey and cheerless of aspect. The sky was leaden, and there was a peculiar and almost sinister lividity in the wan light of the afternoon.
He walked along the Embankment dreamily enough. The movement was pleasant—he had certainly not taken enough exercise lately!—and he tried to postpone the hour of thought, the facing of the question.
When he had crossed the head of the Vauxhall Bridge road, and traversed the rather dingy purlieus of Horseferry, he came out by the Lords' entrance to the Houses of Parliament. The Victoria Tower in all its marvellous modern beauty rose up into the sky, white and incredibly massive against the background of grey. The house was sitting, so he saw from the distant, drooping flag above; but it was many months now since he had ventured into the Upper Chamber. As he came along his heart suddenly began to beat more rapidly than usual, and his face flushed a little. A small brougham just set down the Archbishop of Canterbury as the duke arrived at the door—the man whom in the past he had known so well and liked so much, Lord Camborne, to whose daughter the duke had been engaged—Lord Camborne, older now, stooping a little, but no less dignified and serene. Time had not robbed the bishop and earl of any of his stateliness of port, and the Primate of All England was still one of the most striking figures of the day.
He turned and saw the duke. The two men had never met nor spoken since the day upon which the younger had told of his new convictions. The archbishop hesitated for a moment. His fine old face grew red, and then paled again; there was a momentary flicker of indecision about the firm, proud mouth. Then he held out his hand, with a smile, but a smile in which there was a great deal of sadness.
"Ah, John!" he said, shaking his venerable head. "Ah, John! so we meet again after all these years. How are you? Happy, I hope?—God bless you, my dear fellow."
A pang, like a spear-thrust, traversed the young man's heart as he took that revered and trembling hand.
"I am well, your Grace," he said slowly, "and I'm happy."
"Thank God for it," returned the archbishop, "Who has preserved your Grace"—he put a special and sorrowful accent upon the form of address the younger man shared with him—"for His own purposes, and has given you His grace! as I believe and hope."