Hullo, Forest! I'm coming!' He hurried off, the Squire moving slowly after him.

In the hour before the boy departed he was the spoilt darling of his sisters and the servants, who hung round him, and could not do enough for him.
He endured it, on the whole, patiently dashing out at the very end to say good-bye to an old gardener, once a keeper, with whom he used to go ferreting in the park.

To his father alone his manner was not quite as usual.

It was the manner of one who had been hurt.

The Squire felt it.
As to his elder son, he and Aubrey parted without any outward sign of discord, and on the way to London Aubrey, with the dry detachment that was natural to him in speaking of himself, told the story of the preceding twenty-four hours to the eager Desmond's sympathetic ears.