"Oh! the journey wasn't bad for me, I rather enjoyed it," Dickie said. "And then to tell you the truth, you've spent the better part of your dear life in looking for that same something which I could never manage to find! Poor, sweet mother, no thanks to me, so far, that you haven't utterly worn yourself out in the search for it."—He paused, and gazed away out of the open casement.—"But I have a good hope that's all over and done with now, and that at last I've found the thing myself."
And Katherine, still charmed, still anxious, looked down at him wondering, for there was a perceptible undercurrent of emotion beneath the lightness of his speech.
"However, all that will keep," he continued.—"How did you enjoy your church? Did dear old Julius distinguish himself? How did he preach?"
And Katherine, still wondering, again answered literally.
"Very beautifully," she said, "with an unusual force and pathos. He took the congregation not a little by storm. He fairly carried us away. He was eloquent, and that with a simplicity which made one question whether he did not speak out of some pressing personal experience."—Katherine's manner was touched by a pretty edge of pique.—"Really I believed I knew all about Julius and his doings by this time, but it seems I don't! I think I must find out. It would vex me that anything should happen in which he needed sympathy, and that I did not offer it.—His subject was the answer to prayer and the fulfilment of prophecy—and how both come, come surely and directly, yet often in so different a form to that which, in our narrowness of vision and dulness of sense, we anticipate, that we fail to recognise either the answer or the fulfilment, and so miss the blessing they must needs bring, and which is so richly, so preciously, ours if we had but the wit to understand and lay hold of it."
Whereupon Richard smiled again.
"Yes," he said, "very probably Julius did speak out of personal experience, or rather vicarious experience. However, I don't think he need worry this time, at least I hope not. The answer to prayer and fulfilment of prophecy, when they're good enough to come along, don't always get the cold shoulder."—Then his expression changed, hardened a little, his lips growing thin and his jaw set.—"Look here, mother," he added, "I think perhaps I have been rather playing the fool lately, since we came home. I propose to take to the ordinary habits of civilised, Christian man again. If it doesn't bother you, would you kindly let the servants know that I'm coming down to luncheon?"
"Oh! my dearest, how stupid of me, I'm so grieved!" Katherine cried. She sat down beside him on the cushioned bench, dropping service books, handkerchief, and violets, in the extremity of her gentle and apologetic distress.—"It never occurred to me that you might like to come down. The Newlands people came over to church, and I brought Mary and the two boys back. Godfrey is over from Eton for the Sunday, and little Dick has had a cold and has not gone back to school yet. What can we do? It would be lovely to have you, and yet I don't quite know how I can send them away again."
"But why on earth should they be sent away?" Richard said, touched and amused by her earnestness. "Mary's always a dear, And I've been thinking lately I shouldn't mind seeing something of that younger boy. He is my godson, isn't he? And Knott tells me he is curiously like you and Uncle Roger. You see it's about time to select an heir-apparent for Brockhurst. Luckily I've a free hand. My life's the last in the entail."
Then, looking at him, Lady Calmady's lips trembled a little. Health had returned and with it his former good looks, but matured, spiritualised, as it seemed to her just now. The livid line of the scar had died out too, and was nearly gone. And all this, taken in connection with his words just uttered, affected her to so great and poignant a love, so great and poignant a fear of losing him, that she dared not trust herself to make any comment on those same words lest the flood-gates of emotion should be opened and she should lose her self-control.