Meanwhile, Alice and Sorell followed them at some distance behind, while Mrs. Hooper and three or four other members of the party brought up the rear. Sorell’s look was a little clouded. He had heard what passed in the hall, and he found himself glancing uncomfortably from the girl beside him to the pair forging so gaily ahead. Alice Hooper’s expression seemed to him that of something weak and tortured. All through the winter, in the small world of Oxford, the flirtation between Pryce of Beaumont and Ewen Hooper’s eldest girl had been a conspicuous thing, even for those who had little or no personal knowledge of the Hoopers. It was noticed with amusement that Pryce had at last found some one to whom he might talk as long and egotistically as he pleased about himself and his career; and kindly mothers had said to each other that it would be a comfort to the Hoopers to have one of the daughters settled, though in a modest way. “It is pleasant to see that your cousin enjoys Oxford so much,” said Sorell, as they neared the museum, and saw Pryce and Connie disappearing through the gate of the park. “Yes. She seems to like it,” said Alice coldly. Sorell began to talk of his first acquaintance with the Risboroughs, and of Connie’s mother. There was no hint in what he said of his own passionate affection for his dead friends. He was not a profaner of shrines. But what he said brought out the vastness of Connie’s loss in the death of her mother; and he repeated something of what he had heard from others of her utter physical and mental collapse after the double tragedy of the year before. “Of course you’ll know more about it than I do. But one of the English doctors in Rome, who is a friend of mine, told me that they thought at one time they couldn’t pull her through. She seemed to have nothing else to live for.” “Oh, I don’t think it was as bad as that,” said Alice drily. “Anyway, she’s quite well and strong now.” “She’s found a home again. That’s a great comfort to all her mother’s old friends.” Sorell smiled upon his companion; the sensitive kindness in his own nature appealing to the natural pity in hers. But Alice made no reply; and he dropped the subject. They walked across the park, under a wide summer sky, towards the winding river, and the low blue hills beyond it. At the Cherwell boat-house they found the two boats, with four or five men, and Nora, as usual, taking charge of everything, at least till Herbert Pryce should appear. Connie was just stepping into the foremost boat, assisted by Herbert Pryce, who was in his shirt-sleeves, while Lord Meyrick and another Marmion man were already in the boat. “Sorell, will you stroke the other boat?” said Pryce, “and Miss Nora, will you have a cushion in the bows? Now I think we’re made up. No—we want another lady. And running his eyes over those still standing on the bank, he called a plump little woman, the wife of a Llandaff tutor, who had been walking with Mrs. Hooper.