Francis dropped his amethyst cross and laid his foot on his right knee and began thrusting his finger inside his elastic-sided boot. It was a very old boot and much worn at the heel. Seeing that made Serge notice for the first time that his father's clothes were shabby, out of shape and dusty. He began to cast back in his memory, and with some difficulty he was able to picture his father and mother as a young man and woman--he in knee-breeches and silk stockings and silver buckles to his shoes, and she in a full gown of flowered silk cut low on her pretty shoulders--walking arm in arm in the gardens at St. Withans, and then that was blotted out with recollections not so pleasing, his father silent and his mother talking, talking, talking, then crying, then talking again; then meals taken in a cold atmosphere of restraint. He could remember jolly walks with his father, and scenes of great tenderness with his mother, and the last day when he sobbed his heart out and he was driven with his chest away and away until the Vicarage and then the church-tower were lost from sight. He could recognise himself in the small boy in all those memories, but in the man and woman of those days he could not see the taciturn old man--for he was old--sitting by his side, or the foolish old woman in Fern Square with her blankly sorrowful face and her pathetic chatter of "the gentry" and "common people." He found that he had much affection for both, was rather surprised to find it, and was amused to discover himself casting about for some melodramatic event which should account for their listlessness and indifference to each other, their daughters, everything and everybody. Francis was a good man; the ex-convict of that first dismal day had said so. Mrs. Folyat was a good woman; more than one woman in the parish had borne witness to that.--Nothing had happened. They had dodged everything, like so many others. For them (Serge thought) as for so many others, life had always been round the corner--round the corner. The words lilted in his mind like a refrain, and he said aloud: "Round the corner." "Eh?" said Francis, startled out of his reverie. "I should think it over if I were you," replied Serge, "about going away, I mean. To be quite frank with you, I find my mother a little dull." "Dull? I wouldn't say dull. Not dull. No. We're quiet people, that's all, quiet people. She lived in a very quiet place when she was young. I was curate then. Did I ever tell you about the murder that happened there? I will some day." A head was thrust through the curtain, hurried whispers were exchanged with Jessie Clibran-Bell and she began to thump out some very indifferent music that would have served admirably for a child's game of musical-chairs. "Was it a good murder?" asked Serge. "It was a horrible murder."