The Severns did not winter at. Altes. That was spared him. He persuaded his mother to try Italy for a change. Yet more, he obtained from her a promise that should all be well, the following spring should see the family re-established at Medhurst. Once there, he felt he should be more free to leave them; and travel by himself where the fancy seized him, or rather, wherever he saw the most encouraging prospect for the furtherance of the special studies which he was now determined to resume in earnest, and in which he hoped to find sufficient interest to prevent his life from becoming altogether a blank. His mother was ready enough now-a-days to agree to his wishes, even, when possible, to forestall them. Since Sybil’s illness at Lusac, there had been a great change in Lady Severn. She had learned to cling much to her hitherto little valued son. And something had reached her, in some subtle, impalpable way, of the sorrow, of the bitterness of disappointment through which this summer had seen him pass. She knew no particulars, her private suspicions even, were wide of the mark; but she could see that he had aged strangely of late. Always grave, he had grown more so, and it was long since any of the bright, sudden flashes of humour had been heard, which of old relieved by their sparkle, his usual quiet seriousness. Something of her anxiety about him, she one day endeavoured to express to him; but she never tried it again. With perfect gentleness, but irresistible firmness, he put her aside; and in her inmost heart she felt she deserved it. He could forgive, even, in a sense, forget. But as to taking into his confidence, accepting the sympathy of the mother, whose previous indifference, narrow-minded prejudice, and love of power, had greatly been to blame for the great sorrow of his life—it was asking too much.