When Kennedy had grown more calm, Violet called for Cyril, and bade him break the fact of Edward's presence to her mother and Julian. The boy bounded off to do her bidding, and in a few moments Kennedy was seated among the Homes as one of them. They received him with no simulated affection; Frank and Cyril helped to take away all awkwardness from the meeting by their high spirits, and when they all sat down on the velvet mosses to their rural meal, every one of them had banished the painful hauntings of the past. Of course Kennedy accompanied them home; they drove back in the quiet evening, and Kennedy sat by Violet's side. He stayed at Ildown till Julian returned to Saint Werner's, and, as was natural, he revolved in his mind continually his future course. At last he determined to talk it over with Violet, and told her of all his heroic longings for a life of toil and endeavour, if need were, even of banishment and death--all the high thoughts that had filled his heart as he sat alone in the island by Orton-on-the-Sea. "Let us wait," she said, "Edward. God will decide all this for us in time, and if duty seems to call you to the hard life of missionary or colonist, I am ready to go with you." "But don't you feel yourself, Violet, a kind of commonplace-ness about English life; a silver-slippered religion, a pettiness that does not satisfy, a sense of comfort incompatible with the strong desire to do the work which others will not do in the neglected corners of the vineyard?" "No," she answered, smiling, "I am content:-- "`The trivial round, the common task Should furnish all we ought to ask; Room to deny ourselves--a road To bring us daily nearer God.'" "True," he said; "well, I must try not to carry ambition into my religion." "Of course you return to Saint Werner's next autumn?" He mused long. "Ah, Violet, you cannot conceive how awful to my imagination that place has grown. And to return after rustication, and live among men who will regard me with galling curiosity, and dons who will look at me sideways with suspicion--can I ever bear it?" "Why not, Edward? They cannot affect _you_ by their opinion. I heard you say the other day that your heart was becoming an island, and the waters round it broadening every day. If the island itself be beautiful and happy, it need not reck of the outer world." "You are right, Violet. I will return if need be, and bear all meekly which I have deserved to bear. The one sorrow will be gone," he said, as he drew her nearer to his side, "that drove me into--Yes, you are right. I will go away home to-morrow, when Julian starts, and begin from the very first day to read with all my might. Hitherto I have had only the bitter lessons of Camford; let us see if I cannot gain some of her honours too." CHAPTER THIRTY ONE. BRUCE IN TROUBLE. "Nuda nec arva placent, umbrasque negantia molles, Nec dudum vetiti me laris augit amor." Milton.