Percival Desborough was suffering from remorse. What an old fool he had been! What an unconscionable old fool! All these years, these bitter, lonely years of mental and bodily pain, years that were a nightmare to look back upon, were of his own contriving. These three handsome young fellows, of whom any relative might be proud—what an interest they would have brought into his life, and to what better purpose could he have put his money than to educate them and start them fair, upon a better footing in the world, than could be attained by their own and his poor niece Helen’s unaided efforts? There were two more, he remembered, conceivably as artless and ingenuous as the four of Hubert Le Mesurier’s children with whom he was already acquainted. What a fool, what a fool! He saw it now, and all for what? Fancied slights, imaginary affronts, from this or that member of the Westmacott family; probably the outcome of a distorted mind, fed upon morbid fancies, rendered irritable by bodily pain. Real or fancied, they no way included his niece Helen; but in shutting himself away from the world, his injustice had embraced all within its narrow, bigoted bonds; contention and discord had rankled in his poor, warped mind, and burned fiercely, with little or nothing to feed the fire but his own imaginings. As, in the long hours of the evening spent alone after Hazel’s visit, when the determination came upon him to accept the invitation to go to Hazelhurst, so, in the lonely night hours that followed the entertainment provided by the Le Mesurier boys, did Percival Desborough make up his mind to agree to Gerald’s proposal to run down with his young relatives the following Saturday. *CHAPTER XVIII* "I don’t see how I can go on being engaged to you," Hazel announced. It was a chilly day in October. Autumnal tints abounded in splendour. Hazel herself suggested autumn to Paul’s mind. Her soft, nut-brown hair was surmounted by a little scarlet cap, fur-trimmed; and she wore a scarlet coat, edged also with brown fur. She seemed a combination of wych-hazel and mountain ash. They were driving in Paul’s trap, on visiting intent. The persons about to be honoured were Bobbie Boutcher and Bobbie Boutcher’s mother. "Why not?" Paul asked, in no wise visibly dismayed. "The boys," Hazel declared tragically. "You don’t know what I have to endure: you have no idea. Even Uncle Percival teases now." "What do they do?" Paul asked, much interested. "Some of it is too—too awful to repeat," she averred solemnly. "But the names they call you—and me!" "Give me an example," Paul said encouragingly.