"Geoffrey's off to Oxford to-morrow, and then you and I shall be all alone, old lady, just as we used to be when we were first married twenty years ago." Jemmie was evidently anxious to free his mind of the emotional discomfort that Richard's departure provoked by directing his emotion into the channels of a sentimentalized past; but Mary refused to follow his lead. She had only one idea, which was to be alone with her grief. She had no superfluity of idle regret, no lachrymatories of stale tears to be unsealed for Jemmie's gratification. She was inconsolable. _My darling Mother_, _I hope you got my post-card from Capetown. Here I am at last with my regiment in the field. It was awfully nervous work finding out where they were, and I felt an awful fool when I had to walk into the mess after riding about ten miles and explain who I was. They were awfully decent to me, however, and luckily there was quite a decent dust-up with the Boers soon after I arrived. I was glad to get it all over at once. I mean both my joining up and going into action for the first time. Love to everybody and lots to yourself. I'll write a better letter when I'm more settled. I hear that we are going off chasing De Wet presently. They say we've really got him in a corner this time. It doesn't look as if the war would go on for much longer. I'm really a year too late. That's the bad luck of it. Of course, there's still plenty to do, but it's nothing to what it was, they tell me. The regiment fought splendidly at Spion Kop. I wish I'd been there!_ _Don't read this letter to anybody except Father, and don't let him have it to take with him when he goes to golf. Just read it to him at home. Once more with lots of love,_ _Your loving son, Richard._ _My dearest Mother_, _I've quite settled down at St. Mary's. I'm sorry I've not written more often this term. I shall be going down next week and I've been asked to spend the week before Christmas with a man in my year called Whittington-Jones, an old Carthusian. His people have a rather decent shoot in Norfolk. I wonder if you could get Father to lend me his guns. He practically never shoots now. I suppose you wouldn't mind if I asked Whittington-Jones to come to Woodworth Lodge soon after Christmas? He is rather keen to trot around the theaters, and so am I, I'm bound to admit._