For a moment even Mary was daunted, not by the thing she had brought Rupert here to do but by the realization of what release had meant to William. “Not you, uncle,” Rupert cried. “They hissed me for being a laggard.” “We’re Hepplestalls. That’s why they hissed. They hissed the Service.” It had seemed solemn enough on Staithley Edge, but that was childish levity compared with this. What should one answer back to men who hissed the Service which served them? Gertrude’s pig with a grunt seemed justified in the light of William’s revelation of his progressive efforts. “And you,” William said, “you spoke, and they cheered you for it. Well, it’s in those books. Co-Partnership. No: I’ve not done that. Limitation of profits--I’ve thought the Government was doing that drastically. I don’t know. You went too far for me, but they didn’t hiss you when you’d done, You sav you’re here to learn. Well, I can’t teach you. The technical side and the ordinary business side--oh, yes, we’ll teach you those. But what Labor wants, what, short of something catastrophic on the Russian scale, will satisfy Labor, I cannot tell you for I do not know.” Once, unimaginably long ago, Rupert had found the beginnings of a solution in his wife’s appearance on the screen in a Staithley cinema. It was so long ago that he thought he must have grown stupendously since then. Perhaps he had; it was a far cry from that uninformed optimism to this throttling doubt. The doubt, though, was almost as uninformed as the optimism. He could see Mary’s lips moving: what was she signaling to him? Ah, that was it. She was repeating what she had said as they turned up the drive. “You’ll stay young, please. You’ll keep your hope, my faith, your youth.” Yes, so he would. He wouldn’t let Mary down, he wouldn’t be beaten by Staithley. _Punch_--queer how much he turned to memories of _Punch_ for mental figures--had a cartoon in an _Almanac_ during the war. A tattered soldier, beaten to the knee, represented one year; a fresh upstanding soldier, taking the standard from the first, represented the next year. Was the motto “Carry on”? Well, a good motto for peace too. William was coming to the end of his tether, and Rupert must make ready to take from his hands the standard of the Service. He had to learn, to learn, and for this thing which mattered most he had not found a teacher, but he must keep his hope. Somewhere was light. Somewhere was illumination. Somewhere was a teacher. A servant came into the room. “Mr. Bradshaw wishes to speak to Sir Rupert on the telephone,” he said, and a scoffing laugh from Gertrude died stillborn at a look from the ci-devant, insignificant Lady Hepplestall. Rupert went to the door, like a blind man who is promised sight; and it is permissible to hope that Phoebe Bradshaw, from the place in which she was, saw the face of Rupert Hepplestall as he answered the call to the telephone of Tom Bradshaw, his adviser. THE END