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Philip accepted his cheque readily enough. Rosina took hers with hesitation. There was no shadow of kindliness or regret in the face of the donor. It was impossible to tell from his manner whether the departure of his charges were a sorrow or a relief to him.

"We quite understand that, uncle," Rosina said, a little timidly. "It is very generous of you to give us this money, and, if we may, we should like to part friends."

There was a momentous, almost a dread silence, a silence of which the significance existed only for three of the little gathering. Matthew, with knitted brows, was gazing over Rosina's shoulder at the cheque which she held in her fingers. To him, the words had been said, the farewells spoken; he had no sense of anything unusual in the room. He was engrossed simply by the problem as to whether he had been fairly dealt with in the matter of these farewell gifts. But, in their different ways, the girl and the boy trembling on the verge of life, their revolt rather of the soul than of the body; the man of iron, the pedagogue of narrow places, three times mayor of the town, and every Sunday an expounder of Christian principles according to his lights—these three had left Matthew on planes beneath. It was with a momentary exaltation that Benjamin opened the door and dismissed his rebellious charges, an exaltation which they more than shared. It was with a sensation of boredom and some resentment that Matthew followed them. The door was firmly closed, the three climbed the stairs and went to their rooms to prepare for their forthcoming journey. Benjamin Stone resumed his chair and drew the Bible towards him. Where he opened it, he read—read aloud to himself—read as one seeking hungrily for comfort in a world which for the first time he failed wholly to understand.