Soon the material was distributed and groups were formed round the room. A chatter arose like the murmur of bees. The sun as it sank lower behind the woods turned them to dark crimson and the river pale grey. The sun fell now in burning patches and squares across the room and the dim yellow blinds were pulled half-way across the windows. With this the room was shaded into a strong coloured twilight and the white frocks shone as though seen through glass. The air grew cold beyond the open windows, but the room was warm with the heat that the walls had stolen and stored from the sun. Joan sat with Jane D'Arcy and Betty Callender. She was very happy to be at rest there; she felt secure and safe. Because in truth during these last weeks life had been increasingly difficult--difficult not only because it had become, of late, so new and so strange, but also because she could not tell what was happening. Family life had indeed become of late a mystery, and behind the mystery there was a dim sense of apprehension, apprehension that she had never felt in all her days before. As she sank into the tranquillity of the golden afternoon glow, with the soft white silk passing to and fro in her bands, she tried to realise for herself what had been occurring. Her father was, on the whole, simple enough. He was beginning to suffer yet again from one of his awful obsessions. Since the hour of her earliest childhood she had watched these obsessions and dreaded them. There had been so many, big ones and little ones. Now the Government, now the Dean, now the Town Council, now the Chapter, now the Choir, now some rude letter, now some impertinent article in a paper. Like wild fierce animals these things had from their dark thickets leapt out upon him, and he had proceeded to wrestle with them in the full presence of his family. Always, at last, he had been, victorious over them, the triumph had been publicly announced, "Te Deums" sung, and for a time there had been peace. It was some while since the last obsession, some ridiculous action about drainage on the part of the Town Council. But the new one threatened to make up in full for the length of that interval. Only just before Falk's unexpected return from Oxford Joan had been congratulating herself on her father's happiness and peace of mind. She might have known the omens of that dangerous quiet. On the very day of Falk's arrival Canon Ronder had arrived too. Canon Ronder! How Joan was beginning to detest the very sound of the name! She had hated the man himself as soon as she had set eyes upon him. She had scented, in some instinctive way, the trouble that lay behind those large round glasses and that broad indulgent smile. But now! Now they were having the name "Ronder" with their breakfast, their dinner, and their tea. Into everything apparently his fat fingers were inserted; her father saw his rounded shadow behind every door, his rosy cheeks at every window.