"Farewell, Philip," he said--"farewell. God bless you." And while I was returning the grasp of his closed fingers and struggling to keep down a rising lump in my throat, he passed away from me silently, like a figure in a dream, and the thick, nail-studded door opened and was closed behind him. Then I set my face towards Rome, with blurred eyesight and a bitter sense of loss at my heart. I was going back to England to take possession of a great inheritance, but there was no joy in the thought, only an unutterable, intolerable loneliness which weighed down my heart and spirits and filled me with deep depression. Cecil met me in London, and we went to Ravenor together. It was a strange sensation to me to enter the Castle as its virtual owner, to wander from room to room, from gallery to gallery, and know that it was all mine, and that the long line of Ravenors who frowned and smiled upon me from their dark, worm-eaten frames were my ancestors. At first it seemed pleasant--pleasant, at least, in a measure,--but when I stood in the library and passed on into that little chamber the memories connected with them swept in upon me with such irresistible force that I was glad to send Cecil away for a while. For some time I lived quite alone, save for Cecil's frequent visits, keeping aloof from the people who lived near, and making but few acquaintances. The days I spent either on horseback or with my gun, or often tramping many miles over the open country with a book in my pocket, after the fashion of the days of my boyhood. The nights I had no difficulty about whatever. With such a library as my father's to help me, my love of reading became almost a part of myself. There was one person who viewed this change with profound dissatisfaction, and who at last broke into open protest. "I say, Phil, you know it won't do," Cecil declared one night, when I had tried to steal away into the library on some pretext. "A young fellow of your age, with eighty thousand a year, has no business to shut himself up with a lot of musty books and dream away his time like an old hermit. People are asking about you everywhere, and I'm getting tired of explaining what a rum sort of chap you are. It won't do, really." "Well," I answered, "what do you want me to do?" "I want you to come back to town with me and put up with my people a bit. The mater is very keen about it; in fact, she says that she shall come down here in the autumn if you don't come." I leaned back in my chair and a day-dream rose up before me. "What is your sister like now, Cis?" I asked suddenly. "Trixie! Oh, she's turned out pretty well, I think!" he answered complacently. "What friends you two used to be, by the by!"