Little Arthur Layne, attended by Betsy, spent a day at the Grange on his recovery, invited to meet the peacock. The ladies were very kind to him: they could but admire his gentle manners, his fearless bearing. Sir Geoffry played a game at ninepins with him on the lawn--which set of ninepins had been his own when a child, and had been lying by ever since. Betsy was told she might carry them home for Master Layne: Sir Geoffry gave them to him. After that, the intercourse dropped again, and they became strangers as before. Except that Lady Chavasse would bow from her carriage if she saw Mrs. or Miss Layne, and Sir Geoffry raise his hat. The little boy had more notice: when they met him out, and were walking themselves, they would, one and all, stop and speak to him. So this episode of the accident seemed to fade into the past, as other things had faded: and the time went on. +Part the fourth.+ Autumn leaves were strewing the ground, autumn skies were overhead. A ray of the sun came slanting into the library, passing right across the face of Sir Geoffry Chavasse. The face had an older expression on it than his thirty years would justify. It looked worn and weary, and the bright hair, with its golden tinge, was less carefully arranged than it used to be, as if exertion were becoming a burden, or that vanity no longer troubled him; and his frame was almost painfully thin; and a low hacking cough took him at intervals. It might have been thought that Sir Geoffry was a little out of health, and wanted a change. Lady Chavasse, his mother, had begun to admit a long-repressed doubt whether any change would benefit him. A common desk of stained walnut-wood was open on the table before him: he had been reading over and putting straight some papers it contained--notes and diaries, and so forth. Two or three of these he tore across and threw into the fire. Out of a bit of tissue paper, he took a curl of bright brown hair, recalling the day and hour when he had surreptitiously cut it off, and refused to give it up again to its blushing owner. Recalling also the happy feelings of that time--surreptitiously still, as might be said, for what business had he with them now? Holding the hair to his lips for a brief interval, he folded it up again, and took out another bit of paper. This contained a lady's ring of chased gold set with a beautiful and costly emerald. In those bygone years he had bought the ring, thinking to give it in payment of the stolen hair; but the young lady in her shyness had refused so valuable a present. Sir Geoffry held the ring so that its brightness glittered in the sun, and then wrapped it up again. Next he unfolded a diary, kept at that past period, and for a short time afterwards: then it was abruptly broken off, and had never since been written in. He smiled to himself as he read a page here and there--but the smile was full of sadness.