A year and more had passed, and Mr. Plantagenet's face bore distincter signs than ever of his ruling passion. It was coarse and red under the bland exterior. Maud watched him intently now on the morning of lesson days to see he didn't slink away unobserved into the bar of the White Horse before the appointed hour for the meeting in the Assembly Rooms. Once let him cross the threshold of the inn, except to enter the big hall where he received his pupils, and all was up with him. On such occasions Maud was compelled with grief and shame to stick a notice on the door: 'Mr. Plantagenet is indisposed to-day, and will be unable to meet his usual classes.' Nobody else ever knew what agony those notices cost the poor shrinking girl; but on the next appointed afternoon Mr. Plantagenet would be at his place again as if nothing had happened, and would murmur plaintively, with one hand on his left breast and the other on the bow of his faithful violin: 'My old complaint, ladies and gentlemen--my old complaint! I suffer so much from my heart. I regret I was unable to receive you on Wednesday.' Everybody in Chiddingwick knew quite well the real nature of Mr. Plantagenet's 'old complaint,' but he was an institution of the place, and everybody pretended to believe in it and to sympathize with him. On this particular day, however, in the middle of November, Mr. Plantagenet seemed even more consequential and more dignified than usual, if such a thing were possible. He received Lady Agatha's little girls with princely condescension. Maud, who stood by trembling, and watching him with dismay, as he fiddled with a will on his well-tried violin, wondered to herself, with a mute feeling of terror in her heart, what on earth could have put her father into such visible good humour. She didn't discover the secret till the end of the lesson. Then Mr. Plantagenet, rising with great importance and a conscious smirk, observed in his suavest and most professional tone: 'I am sorry to say, young ladies and gentlemen--and you, Miss Tudor--I won't be able to give the usual lessons next Tuesday and Wednesday. The fact of the matter is, I shall be away from Chiddingwick. It doesn't often happen that I take a holiday; but on this occasion I shall be away from Chiddingwick. Long and close attention to the duties of a harassing and wearisome task has undermined my constitution; you can sympathize with my feelings, and next week I propose to give myself a well-earned repose in order to visit my dear son at the University of Oxford.'