To his sister Effie, on the day after his wife's elopement, Christopher had said over the telephone: "Will you take Tommie for an indefinite period? Marchant will come with him. She offers to take charge of your two youngest as well, so you'll save a maid, and I'll pay their board and a bit over." The voice of his sister--from Yorkshire--had answered: "Certainly, Christopher." She was the wife of a vicar, near Groby, and she had several children. To Macmaster Tietjens had said: "Sylvia has left me with that fellow Perowne." Macmaster had answered only: "Ah!" Tietjens had continued: "I'm letting the house and warehousing the furniture. Tommie is going to my sister Effie. Marchant is going with him." Macmaster had said: "Then you'll be wanting your old rooms." Macmaster occupied a very large storey of the Gray's Inn buildings. After Tietjens had left him on his marriage he had continued to enjoy solitude, except that his man had moved down from the attic to the bedroom formerly occupied by Tietjens. Tietjens said: "I'll come in to-morrow night if I may. That will give Ferens time to get back into his attic." That morning, at breakfast, four months having passed, Tietjens had received a letter from his wife. She asked, without any contrition at all, to be taken back. She was fed-up with Perowne and Brittany. Tietjens looked up at Macmaster. Macmaster was already half out of his chair, looking at him with enlarged, steel-blue eyes, his beard quivering. By the time Tietjens spoke Macmaster had his hand on the neck of the cut-glass brandy decanter in the brown wood tantalus. Tietjens said: "Sylvia asks me to take her back." Macmaster said: "Have a little of this!" Tietjens was about to say: "No," automatically. He changed that to: "Yes. Perhaps. A liqueur glass." He noticed that the lip of the decanter agitated, tinkling on the glass. Macmaster must be trembling. Macmaster, with his back still turned, said: "Shall you take her back?" Tietjens answered: "I imagine so." The brandy warmed his chest in its descent. Macmaster said: "Better have another." Tietjens answered: "Yes. Thanks." Macmaster went on with his breakfast and his letters. So did Tietjens. Ferens came in, removed the bacon plates and set on the table a silver water-heated dish that contained poached eggs and haddock. A long time afterwards Tietjens said: "Yes, in principle I'm determined to. But I shall take three days to think out the details." He seemed to have no feelings about the matter. Certain insolent phrases in Sylvia's letter hung in his mind. He preferred a letter like that. The brandy made no difference to his mentality, but it seemed to keep him from shivering. Macmaster said: "Suppose we go down to Rye by the 11.40. We could get a round after tea now the days are long. I want to call on a parson near there. He has helped me with my book." Tietjens said: "Did your poet know parsons? But of course he did. Duchemin is the name, isn't it?"