Theobald stood before the middle of the fire and
whistled his two tunes softly in his own old way till Ernest left
the room; the unchangedness of the external and changedness of the
internal he felt were likely to throw him completely off his balance.
He strolled out of doors into the sodden spinney behind the house,
and solaced himself with a pipe. Ere long he found himself at the door
of the cottage of his father's coachman, who had married an old lady's
maid of his mother's, to whom Ernest had been always much attached
as she also to him, for she had known him ever since he had been
five or six years old. Her name was Susan. He sat down in the
rocking-chair before her fire, and Susan went on ironing at the
table in front of the window, and a smell of hot flannel pervaded
the kitchen.
Susan had been retained too securely by Christina to be likely to
side with Ernest all in a moment. He knew this very well, and did
not call on her for the sake of support, moral or otherwise. He had
called because he liked her, and also because he knew that he should
gather much in a chat with her that he should not be able to arrive at
in any other way.
"Oh, Master Ernest," said Susan, "why did you not come back when
your poor papa and mamma wanted you? I'm sure your ma has said to me a
hundred times over if she has said it once that all should be
exactly as it had been before.
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