He was brought face to face with real passions and real facts, he had been fetched out from his cloister and was blinking miserably in a full measure of daylight.

How long could he endure it, he wondered?
The question was settled for him that very evening.

He and his son were taking their coffee on a paved terrace by the lawn after dinner.

It was a dark quiet night, with a clear sky of golden stars.

Across the meadow the lights shone in the windows of Stella's cottage.
"Father," said Dick, after they had sat in a constrained silence for a little while, "why don't you like Stella any longer ?" The old man blustered in reply: "A lawyer's question, Richard.