In this paradise of flowers Allan and Suzette dawdled away two or three afternoons in every week. Discombe seemed to Allan always something of an enchanted palace--a place upon which there lay a glamour and a spell, a garden of sleep, a grove for woven paces and weaving hands, a spot haunted by sad sweet memories, ruled over by the genius of love, faithful in disappointment. Mrs. Wornock's personality gave an atmosphere of sadness to the house in which she lived, to the gardens in which she paced to and fro with slow, meditative steps; but it was not an unpleasing sadness, and it suited Allan's mood in this quiet summer of waiting, while grief for the loss of his father was still fresh in his mind. Lady Emily came to Discombe on several occasions, and now that Mrs. Wornock's shyness had worn off--with all those agitations which were inevitable at a first meeting--the two women were very good friends. It was difficult for any one not to take kindly to Lady Emily Carew, and she on her side was fascinated by a nature so different from her own, and by that reserve force of genius which gave fire and pathos to Mrs. Wornock's playing. Lady Emily listened with moistened eyes to the Sonata Pathetica, and Mrs. Wornock showed a cordial interest in the Blickling Park and Woodbastwick cows--which gave distinction to the Fendyke dairy farm. "Pure white, with lovely black muzzles--and splendid milkers!" protested Lady Emily. "I was taught that thing you play, dear Mrs. Wornock; but my playing was never good for much, even when I was having two lessons a week from poor Sir Julius. He was only Mr. Benedict when he taught me, and he was almost young." Geoffrey made meteoric appearances at Discombe during those quiet summer months, and his presence seemed to make everybody uncomfortable. There was a restlessness--a suppressed fever about him which made sensitive people nervous. Dearly though his mother loved him, and gladly as she welcomed his reappearance upon the scene of her life, she was always fluttered and anxious while he was under her roof. His leave expired early in July, but instead of joining his regiment, which had returned to England, and was now quartered at York, he sent in his papers, without telling his mother or anybody else what he was doing, and he would not reconsider his decision when asked to do so by his colonel. He told his mother one morning at breakfast, in quite a casual way, that he had left the army. "Oh, Geoffrey!" she exclaimed, with a shocked look. "I hope you are not sorry. I thought it would please you for me to be my own master, able to spend more of my life with you." "Dear Geoffrey, I am very glad on that account; but I'm afraid it is a selfish gladness. It was better for you to have a profession. Everybody told me so years ago, when I was so grieved at your going into the army."