He found his mother lingering over her tea in the parlour of the trim cottage. He caught a glimpse of her unobserved as he approached the window, and it was rather a shock to him to observe a look in her face which he had never seen before. She was sitting motionless, with her outstretched hands pressed against the edge of the table and her gaze fixed upon emptiness. Her brown eyes, from the angle at which he caught her, had a defeated, weary, helpless expression, and even the contours of her formidable chin were relaxed, crumpled, desolate.

He had a queer feeling of shame for having caught her thus, as though in the indecent exposure of some secret deformity; and he hurriedly and noisily entered the little house.

At his appearance her whole manner changed. She seemed delighted to have the chance of driving to Ramsgard with him, and they chatted gaily till she went upstairs to get ready.

Roger Monk did not keep them waiting; and while he was at the garden-gate, holding the horse till the lady came down, Wolf had a word or two with him.