There was no difficulty with Edward Caspar. He had made an immense effort and fought about the Colonies. Easily spent, he would not fight again. Moreover, Ernie committed to the Army was committed for a few years only, and not for life; and some of his service might very well be passed in England. In Edward Caspar too, pacifist though he personally inclined to be, there was no inherited prejudice to overcome: for the Beauregards had been soldiers for generations. Mr. Trupp came to talk things over; and that evening, as father and son sat together in the study, Edward Caspar said out of the silence, very quietly, "Boy-lad, it's best you should go." "I shall go all right, dad," the boy answered, feigning a cheerfulness he by no means felt. "Don't you worry." "Mother wants it," the other continued. "She's all right, mother is," said the lad. It was settled that the boy should go over to Lewes and enlist in the Hammer-men at the depot there, on Saturday. The decision made, his mother relaxed somewhat. While she still kept Ernie without money, she allowed him cigarettes. Father and son sat together and smoked in the evenings, watching the trees swaying against the blue in the Rectory Garden across the road. Alf reported surreptitiously to his mother that Ern was smoking with dad. "What's it to do with you if he is?" answered the other tartly. The catastrophe which had severed the frayed string that joined the mother and her eldest son had reacted unfavourably on her relations with Alf. The few days before Ern's departure went with accustomed speed. On the last evening, as he and his father sat together, studying their toes in the twilight, a small fire flickering in the grate, Edward Caspar spoke out of the dark which he had been waiting to cover him. "Boy-lad, I can't do by you as I should wish," he said tremulously. "But here's a bit of something to show you I mean well." In the half light he thrust an envelope towards his son. Ern opened it and saw that it contained a five-pound note. The great waters surged up into his throat and filled his eyes. "Here! I can't keep this, dad," he said chokily. "I'm all right. I've got..." The old man--for such he was to his son, though not yet fifty--waved his hand irritably. "Put it away," he said, "put it away. Let's hear no more of it." Ernie sat dumb, moved and wondering. Where had dad got the money from? He knew very well that his mother jealously controlled the family purse, doling out rare sixpences or shillings to his father; and he knew why. The boy's brain moved swiftly. "What's the time, dad?" he asked, and lit the gas. The clock on the mantel-piece never went: for it was Edward Caspar's solitary household task to wind it up. The father, by no means a match for his artful son, produced from a baggy pocket a five-shilling Waterbury watch in place of the old gold hunter that had come to him from Lady Blanche's father, the twelfth Earl Ravensrood.