He was the earliest in the breakfast-room, and found a batch of letters lying in his accustomed place. They were of all kinds,--foreign letters from men whose acquaintance he had made abroad, and the gist of whose correspondence lay in an endeavour to tempt him to come out to them again; a business letter or two about the investment of some spare cash; a line from Blab Bertram, wondering when L. A. was coming to town, and "what was the use of leaving Egypt if you stuck down in Devon?" and a thick old-fashioned letter, on yellowish gilt-edged paper, sealed with a large seal, and directed in a bold yet tremulous hand--his father's. Alsager's conscience pricked him as he came upon this letter at the bottom of the little pile; he had been two months in England, after two years' absence, and had not yet found time to visit his father. They had been always very good friends; indeed when Laurence was at Eton, the tie between them was of the strongest, and they were more like brothers than father and son. With the young man's life at Oxford their relations were a little less intimate; Laurence was beginning to see life with his coevals, and found Sir Peregrine's society a check and hindrance on his enjoyment. The father perceived this, and weakly allowed himself to be annoyed at it. He was hurt and jealous at his son's preference of younger companions, at his own inability to amuse or interest his son's friends; and from that time forth there was a slight estrangement between them. Laurence had the enjoyment of his mother's fortune on coming of age, so that he was perfectly independent of his father; and his joining the Guards was entirely his own doing, and to a certain extent against his father's wish. Sir Peregrine was of that old-fashioned school which abhorred London and its ways, and thought a country gentleman ought to live entirely on his own estate, in superintending which, and in joining the sports of the field, he would find plenty of amusement and occupation. Their ideas and tastes being thus different, it was tacitly felt by both that they were best apart, and during the last few years they had not met a dozen times. Sir Peregrine's annual visit to London was generally made in the winter, when Laurence was staying with country friends; and Laurence found little attraction in the dozy, prosy county-magistrate society which the old gentleman gathered round him at Knockholt. But his conscience pricked him when he saw the old gentleman's letter, which had been forwarded to him from his club--pricked him sharply after he had opened it and read as follows: "Knockholt, Friday.