He laughed, and said it was time to go to bed. The same evening conversation continued to a late hour between Hubert Eldon and his mother. Hubert was returning to London the next morning. Yesterday there had come to him two letters from Wanley, both addressed in female hand. He knew Adela’s writing from her signature in the ‘Christian Year,’ and hastily opened the letter which came from her. The sight of the returned sonnets checked the eager flow of his blood; he was prepared for what he afterwards read. ‘Then let her meet her fate,’--so ran his thoughts when he had perused the cold note, unassociable with the Adela he imagined in its bald formality. ‘Only life can teach her.’ The other letter he suspected to be from Letty Tew, as it was. ‘DEAR MR. ELDON,--I cannot help writing a line to you, lest you should think that I did not keep my promise in the way you understood it. I did indeed. You will hear from her; she preferred to write herself, and perhaps it was better; I should only have had painful things to say. I wish to ask you to have no unkind or unjust thoughts; I scarcely think you could have. Please do not trouble to answer this, but believe me, yours sincerely, ‘L. TEW.’ ‘Good little girl!’ he said to himself, smiling sadly. ‘I feel sure she did her best.’ But his pride was asserting itself, always restive under provocation. To rival with a man like Mutimer! Better that the severance with old days should be complete. He talked it all over very frankly with his mother, who felt that her son’s destiny was not easily foreseen. ‘And what do you propose to do, Hubert?’ she asked, when they spoke of the future. ‘To study, principally art. In a fortnight I go to Rome.’ Mrs. Eldon had gone thither thirty years ago. ‘Think of me in my chair sometimes,’ she said, touching his hands with her wan fingers. CHAPTER XVI Alice reached home again on Christmas Eve. It was snowing; she came in chilled and looking miserable. Mrs. Mutimer met her in the hall, passed her, and looked out at the open door, then turned with a few white flecks on her gown. ‘Where’s Dick? ‘He couldn’t come,’ replied the girl briefly, and ran up to her room. ‘Arry was spending the evening with friends. Since tea-time the old woman had never ceased moving from room to room, up and down stairs. She had got out an old pair of Richard’s slippers, and had put them before the dining-room fire to warm. She had made a bed for Richard, and had a fire burning in the chamber. She had made arrangements for her eldest son’s supper. No word had come from Wanley, but she held to the conviction that this night would see Richard in London.