Mrs. Molloy's prediction that on the night of Rudge's annual dramatic and musical entertainment the Hall would be completely emptied of its occupants was not, as it happened, literally fulfilled. A wanderer through the stable yard at about the hour of ten would have perceived a light in an upper window: and had he taken the trouble to get a ladder and climb up and look in would have beheld John Carroll seated at his table, busy with a pile of accounts. In an age so notoriously avid of pleasure as the one in which we live it is rare to find a young man of such sterling character that he voluntarily absents himself from a village concert in order to sit at home and work: and, contemplating John, one feels quite a glow. It was not as if he had been unaware of what he was missing. The vicar, he knew, was to open the proceedings with a short address: the choir would sing old English glees: the Misses Vivien and Alice Pond-Pond were down on the programme for refined coon songs: and, in addition to other items too numerous and fascinating to mention, Hugo Carmody and his friend Mr. Fish would positively appear in person and render that noble example of Shakespeare's genius, the Quarrel Scene from _Julius Cæsar_. Yet John Carroll sat in his room, working. England's future cannot be so dubious as the pessimists would have us believe while her younger generation is made of stuff like this. John was finding in his work these days a good deal of consolation. There is probably no better corrective of the pangs of hopeless love than real, steady application to the prosaic details of an estate. The heart finds it difficult to ache its hardest while the mind is busy with such items as Sixty-one pounds, eight shillings and fivepence, due to Messrs. Truby and Gaunt for Fixing Gas Engine, or the claim of the Country Gentlemen's Association for eight pounds eight and fourpence for seeds. Add drains, manure, and feed of pigs, and you find yourself immediately in an atmosphere where Romeo himself would have let his mind wander. John, as he worked, was conscious of a distinct easing of the strain which had been on him since his return to the Hall. And if at intervals he allowed his eyes to stray to the photograph of Pat on the mantelpiece, that was the sort of thing that might happen to any young man, and could not be helped. It was seldom that visitors penetrated to this room of his--indeed, he had chosen to live above the stables in preference to inside the house for this very reason, and on Rudge's big night he had looked forward to an unbroken solitude. He was surprised, therefore, as he checked the account of the Messrs. Vanderschoot & Son for bulbs, to hear footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, the door had opened and Hugo walked in.