‘Very dreadful and unchristian,’ said Gundred firmly, but mildly. ‘I wonder you can bear to read such things. I am sure it cannot be good for Mr. Restormel to hear them.’ Kingston might talk if he pleased of ‘Ivor,’ Gundred pointed her disapproval by adhering rigidly to the formal mode of address, and would never accord her enemy the favour of any more friendly appellation. ‘Mr. Restormel,’ she repeated decisively, ‘could not be expected to see anything in such irreverent nonsense.’ Kingston could not trust himself to answer her, nor to make any further remark on the abysmal stupidity of the boy who stood so perpetually between him and the memory of Isabel. Hurriedly turning over the pages, he began to read that most wonderful scene in history, the second meeting of the triumphant Buddha with Yasodhara his wife, after those many years of parting and glorification. Both the world’s great Buddha stories contain the tragedy of a woman; but the tale of the Indian Princess, widowed through long earthly years of the man she loved, and then, in the end, reunited with the Perfected Incarnation of Holiness, is even more tremendous, if less physically poignant, than that of the Mother who stood on Calvary. Mystical, majestic, splendid, is the crowning moment in the life of Yasodhara, and Kingston read the words that relate it with a passionate sense of the truth that they convey. Then he fell silent. ‘Very pretty, dear,’ said Gundred. ‘Would you pick up my wool for me? Thanks. But I do think one might find something more profitable to read on Sundays. I think one ought to make Sunday different somehow, from other days, and not read novels and things like that. One should only read _real_ things on Sundays--yes?’ She slipped into sight the volume with which she occasionally beguiled the devout labours of her knitting. With a gentle little air of excellence she laid it down again unostentatiously, but so that the gilt lettering showed along its cover. It was the ‘Life of Bishop Boffatt,’ by Three Nieces, with a ‘Foreword’ from Archdeacon Widge. CHAPTER XX