"And you will be friends still, Allan--you and my poor wilful son? He is like a ship without a rudder, now that he has left the army. He has no intimate friends. He cannot rest long in one place. I never wanted him to steal your sweetheart, Allan. I am sure you know that. But I should be very glad to see him married." "You will see him married before long--and to the lady who was once my sweetheart." Mrs. Wornock shook her head; and the argument was closed by the appearance of Geoffrey himself, who came sauntering in from the garden, with his favourite Clumber spaniel at his heels. "Been shooting?" Allan asked, as they shook hands. There was a certain aloofness in their greeting, but nothing churlish or sullen in the manner of either. On Geoffrey's side there was only listlessness; on Allan's a grave reserve. "No. I look at my dogs every day. The keepers do the rest." "You are not fond of shooting?" "Not particularly--not of creeping about a copse on the look-out for a cock pheasant; still less do I love a hot corner!" He seated himself on the bench by the organ, and began to turn over a pile of music, idly, almost mechanically, not as if he were looking for anything in particular. Allan rose to go, and Mrs. Wornock followed him to the corridor. "Does he not look wretched? And wretchedly ill?" she asked appealingly; her own unhappiness visible in every line of her face. "He is certainly changed for the worse since I saw him last. That was a longish time ago, you may remember. He looks hipped and worried. He should go away, as I am going." "Not like you, Allan, to a savage country. I wish he would take me to Italy for the winter. We could move from place to place. He could change the scene as often as he liked." "I fear the mind would be the same, though earth and sky might change. Travelling upon beaten paths would only bore him. If he is unhappy, and you are unhappy about him, you had better let him come with Patrington and me." The offer was made on the impulse of the moment, out of sympathy with the mother rather than out of regard for the son. "No, no, I could not bear to lose him again--so soon. What would my life be like if you were both gone? I should lapse into the old loneliness--and solitude would bring back the old dreams--the old vain longing----" These last words were murmured brokenly, in self-communion. Allan left her, and she went back to the music-room, where Geoffrey had seated himself at the piano, and was playing a Spanish dance by Sarasate, for the edification of the spaniel, who looked agonized. "What have you been saying to Carew, mother?" he asked, stopping in the middle of a phrase. "Nothing of any importance. Allan is going to Central Africa with a friend he met in Suffolk--a Mr. Patrington." "A Mr. Patrington? I suppose you mean Cecil Patrington?" "Yes, that is the name." CHAPTER III. "I GO TO PROVE MY SOUL."