It was a sweltering morning in early July that I first crept out of doors, with Zyp for my companion. It was happiness to me to have her by my side, though as yet my weak and watery veins could prickle to no ghost of passion. I had thought that life could hold nothing for me ever again but present pain and agonized retrospects. It was not so. The very smell of the freshly watered roads woke a shadowy delight in me as we stepped over the threshold. The buoyant thunder of the river, as it leaped under the old street bridge seemed to gush over my heart with a cleansing joyousness that left it white and innocent again. We crossed the road and wandered by a zig-zag path to the ancient close, where soft stretches and paddocks of green lawn, “immemorial elms” and scattered buildings antique and embowered wrought such an harmonious picture as filled my tired soul with peace. Here we sat down on an empty bench. I had much to question Zyp about--much to reflect on and put into words--but my neglected speech moved as yet on rusty hinges. “Zyp,” I said presently, in a low voice; “tell me--where is he buried?” “In the churchyard--St. John’s, under the hill, Renny.” Not once until now had I touched upon this subject or mentioned Modred’s name to any one of them, and a great longing was upon me to get it over and done with. “Who went?” “Dad and Jason and Dr. Crackenthorpe.” “Zyp, nobody has asked me anything about it. Don’t you all want to know how--how it happened?” “He was caught in the weeds--you said so yourself, Renny.” Vainly I strove to get under her words; intuition was, for the time being, a sluggish quantity in me. “Yes; but----” I began, when she took me up softly. “Dad said it was all clear and that we were never to bother you about it at all.” A sigh of gratitude to heaven escaped me. “And I for one,” said Zyp, “don’t intend to.” Something in her words jarred unaccountably on my sick nerves. “At first,” she said, just glancing at me, “dad thought there ought to be an inquest, but Dr. Crackenthorpe was so set against it that he gave in.” “Dr. Crackenthorpe? Why was----” “He said that juries took such an idiotic view of a father’s responsibilities; that dad might be censured for letting the boy run wild; that in any case the family’s habits of life would be raked over and cause a scandal that might make things very uncomfortable; that it was a perfectly plain case of drowning, and that he was quite willing to give a certificate that death was due to a rupture of some blood vessel in the brain following exhaustion from exposure--or something of that sort.” “And he did?” “Yes, at last, after a deal of talk, and he was buried quietly and there was an end of it.” Not quite an end, Zyp--not quite an end!