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"Good day, brother."

Charles's voice came coolly, unaware that he greeted a retired Bishop who had supplanted him.

Gervase pulled up, a little dazed by the spread of his thoughts and surprised to find that his legs, at an almost equal speed, had taken him all unwittingly over the footbridge that crossed the River Tillingham, and into the lower groves of Conster's garden.

"Good day, Charles. Good day, Master Douce."

Charles was standing on a green lawn-slope beside the river, in conference with his furnace master, John Douce, great-grandson of Robert Douce, the melancholy Frenchman who had come as a refugee from Beauface more than a hundred years ago. The Douces and the Harmans were connected, for a daughter of Robert Douce had married the young Harman of her day, and for a time, as no Alard could ever forget, the Conster estate had been parcelled out between them. But their power had ended with the Commonwealth and the Douces had returned to their former state more philosophically than the Harmans. Perhaps John Douce, as owner of Conster Furnace, had seen the shadow creeping down on it, and thought it as well to put himself in a less responsible position. The shadow came from the high hill behind Conster, where the forest of Mardersham met the forest of Wagenmary. The furnace had blown for a hundred years and already the trees were growing thin. New plantations had been made, but the young stock was not thriving—and anyway it is impossible to grow a tree in the time it takes to cut one down.