Even now that Richard had come home, Mrs. Lister would not lie down. She changed her dress for her usual morning apparel and put away the remains of his breakfast which he had placed on a chair outside his door, so that 'Manda might not suspect the strange doings of the night, then she went into the study. Dr. Lister lay on the couch. When she entered, he opened his eyes for a second, then closed them again, and she sat down and waited. In a little while, as though the tremendous disturbance of her mind was transferred through the still air to his sleepy brain, he opened his eyes wide and sat bolt upright. "Yes, yes, my dear! What is it?" Mrs. Lister made no apology for any telepathic means by which she might have awakened him. It was his business to be awake. "This thing must be settled, Thomas." From the vague borderland of sleep, Dr. Lister tried honestly and vainly to understand just what must be settled. "What thing, mother?" Mrs. Lister gave him a look in which astonishment and impatience were mingled. "Richard can't have anything to do with this girl; he can't play with her, or see her, or talk to her; it isn't decent or right." "You mean he must be told about Basil?" Dr. Lister remembered now the events and revelations of the night. "It must be stopped. Everything must be stopped. Our child must do what is right." The revelations of the night seemed to Dr. Lister like illusions. "You are sure of all you told me, mother?" "I am sure." "Do you know where they went after they left here--the girl and her father, I mean?" "We heard it was a little town in Ohio called Marysville." "You never caused any inquiry to be made there?" "Oh, no!" "Basil wasn't with them when he died, was he?" "No." "We can't do anything at this minute. We'll have to learn whether Richard has gone any farther than to play the piano a few times with this young lady and I'll find out about these plans and intentions of his." "His plans and intentions!" repeated Mrs. Lister. "He's old enough to have them, my dear. I think we'd better let him have his music, don't you?" Mrs. Lister gave her husband another long, level, and astonished glance. Then she sought her own room. Richard came downstairs for lunch, white and with dark-rimmed eyes. But he was clean and his eyes shone. Faversham had accepted him, had said he would be glad to have him. He had sent messages to Miss Thomasina; he had said a hundred things which she must hear at once. "He talked about her as though he were in love with her," thought Richard whose thoughts ran in one channel. Faversham had played for him, had talked about Beethoven and John Sebastian Bach. Faversham had heard and had torn up his small compositions and had put them into the wastebasket, smiling. "You don't want those to appear in collections of your works, my boy!" he had said.