Eight months or so of exile; but what matter?
Better so than that he should be driven into some deed that would compel him to spend his whole lifetime apart from her.

He would write, and she would understand and approve when he told her what had passed that day.
The resolve was firmly implanted in him by the time he reached Penarrow, and he felt himself uplifted by it and by the promise it afforded him that thus his future happiness would be assured.
Himself he stabled his horse; for of the two grooms he kept, one had by his leave set out yesterday to spend Christmas in Devon with his parents, the other had taken a chill and had been ordered to bed that very day by Sir Oliver, who was considerate with those that served him.
In the dining-room he found supper spread, and a great log fire blazed in the enormous cowled fire-place, diffusing a pleasant warmth through the vast room and flickering ruddily upon the trophies of weapons that adorned the walls, upon the tapestries and the portraits of dead Tressilians.

Hearing his step, old Nicholas entered bearing a great candle-branch which he set upon the table.
"You'm late, Sir Oliver," said the servant, "and Master Lionel bain't home yet neither." Sir Oliver grunted and scowled as he crunched a log and set it sizzling under his wet heel.

He thought of Malpas and cursed Lionel's folly, as, without a word, he loosed his cloak and flung it on an oaken coffer by the wall where already he had cast his hat.

Then he sat down, and Nicholas came forward to draw off his boots.
When that was done and the old servant stood up again, Sir Oliver shortly bade him to serve supper.
"Master Lionel cannot be long now," said he.