He walked quickly, his rapid youthful steps warning whosoever might be out and about, of his approach. There was no doubtfulness in these steps; he was not wandering vaguely, but had a certain end before him, the parlour of the “Red Lion,” which had made his mother wring her hands as much as all the other painful circumstances of the night. He had persuaded himself, as soon as the first novelty of his return home was over, that he had nowhere else to go. To sit between his mother and Joan in the parlour, they could not suppose that a young fellow would do that. Women are unreasonable; they had supposed it, not knowing in their own accustomedness and unexpectancy how dull it was. There was nothing very lively going on at the “Red Lion,” and a mother and sister might have been excused for wondering what charm there was in the dull and drowsy talk, the slow filling of glasses, the rustic opinions and confused ideas of the company there. Harry did not find much charm in it, but it was more congenial than sitting with the women. He was angry when his father assailed his mother, feeling it a kind of assault upon his own side, but his father’s ceaseless scorn of her, which he had known all his life, had influenced him in spite of himself. To sit at home with two women in a parlour was out of the question. The other parlour was not entertaining, but it was not home, and that was always something. The “Red Lion” was in the middle of the village, which lay on a considerably lower level than that of the White House, clustered upon the stream which divided the valley. It was quite a small stream ordinarily, but at present it was swollen with spring rains and with the melted snow, and made a faint roar in the night as it swept under the bridge, with here and there a gleam of light reflected in it from the neighbouring houses. It was not with any very highly raised expectations that Harry turned his eyes towards these lights. He would get out of the cold, that was one thing, and into the light, and would see something different from his father’s furious countenance, or his mother’s pale one, or Joan’s eyes, that paid attention to everything but her knitting. How strange it is that home, which is paradise at five, and so pleasant a place at fifteen, should be intolerable at five-and-twenty! As he approached the corner at which, coming from his exile at Wyburgh, he had first caught sight of the lights in the White House, he could not help remembering the shout of delight he used to send forth. How pleasant it had been to come home from Uncle Henry’s prim old place! but what was home to him now? at the best a duty, a weariness. As he began to think of this a kind of desire, a longing to go far away came over him. Why shouldn’t he go away? His mother would not like it, but nobody else would mind. His mother was the only creature, he reflected, whom he cared for at home; and of course it was his duty to come and see her from time to time.