The Return by Walter de la Mare — Read

Mr. Bethany sat awaiting them in the dining-room, a large, heavily-furnished room with a great benign looking-glass on the mantelpiece, a marble clock, and with rich old damask curtains. Fleecy silver hair was all that was visible of their visitor when they entered. But Mr. Bethany rose out of his chair when he heard them, and with a little jerk, turned sharply round. Thus it was that the gold-spectacled vicar and Lawford first confronted each other, the one brightly illuminated, the other framed in the gloom of the doorway. Mr. Bethany's first scrutiny was timid and courteous, but beneath it he tried to be keen, and himself hastened round the table almost at a trot, to obtain, as delicately as possible, a closer view. But Lawford, having shut the door behind him, had gone straight to the fire and seated himself, leaning his face in his hands. Mr. Bethany smiled faintly, waved his hand almost as if in blessing, but certainly in peace, and tapped Mrs. Lawford into the chair upon the other side. But he himself remained standing.

"Mrs. Lawford has, I declare, been telling family secrets," he began, and paused, peering. "But there, you will forgive an old friend's intrusion -- this little confidence about a change, my dear fellow -- about a ramble and a change? " He sat down, put up his kind little puckered face and peered again at Lawford, and then very hastily at his wife. But all her attention was centred on the bowed figure opposite to her. Lawford responded to this cautious advance without raising his head.