"I should be better out of the way," her bitterness said within her, and alas! it was true. Her great, gaunt room seemed very lonely, very full of shadows when she returned to it. Rupert, who always slept at her bedside, awaited her. Disturbed at this unwonted hour, he stirred in his basket, wheezed and gurgled, turned round and round and could not get comfortable, whined, and looked up in his mistress's face. She stood watching him with a sort of grim pity, and, strangely enough, bestowed upon him the caress she had not found for her grandson. "Poor Rupert! You are getting too old, like your mistress! Your departure, like hers, will be a sorrow to no one!" Rupert seemed to wheeze an asthmatical consent, and presently he snuggled down in his basket and went to sleep. XXV THE BELLS OF STOKE REVEL On Sunday morning Robinette and Lavendar were both ready for church, by some strange coincidence, half an hour too soon. He was standing at the door as she came down into the hall. Mrs. de Tracy and Miss Smeardon were nowhere to be seen; even Carnaby was invisible, but the shrill, infuriated yelping of the Prince Charles from the drawing room indicated his whereabouts only too plainly. "We're much too early," said Robinette, glancing at the clock. "Shall we walk through the buttercup meadow, then--you and I?" asked Lavendar. His voice was low, and Robinette answered very softly. She wore a white dress that morning without a touch of colour. "I couldn't wear black to-day for Nurse," she said, in answer to his glance, "but I couldn't wear any colour, either." "You're as white as the plum tree was!" said Lavendar. "I remember thinking that it looked like a bride." Robinette made no reply. He ventured to look up at her as he spoke, and she was smiling although her lip quivered and her eyes were full of tears. Lavendar's heart beat uncomfortably fast as they walked through the meadow towards the stile which led into the churchyard. "It's too soon to go in yet," he said. "The bells haven't begun." "Let's stop here. It's cool in the shadow," said Robinette. She leaned on the wall and looked out at the shining reaches of the river. "The swelling of Jordan is over now," she said with a little smile and a sigh. "The tide has come up, and how quiet everything is!" The water mirrored the hills and the ships and the gracious sky above them. There was scarcely a sound in the air. At the point where they stood, the Manor House was hidden from view, and only the squat old tower of the church was visible, and the yew tree rising above the wall against the golden field. A bush of briar covered with white roses hung above them, just behind Robinette, and Lavendar looking at her in this English setting on an English Sunday morning, wondered to himself, as he had so often done before, if she could ever make this country her home.