"We have been discussing--" A discussion in the Fyne menage! How portentous! Perhaps the very first difference they had ever had: Mrs.Fyne unflinching and ready for any responsibility, Fyne solemn and shrinking--the children in bed upstairs; and outside the dark fields, the shadowy contours of the land on the starry background of the universe, with the crude light of the open window like a beacon for the truant who would never come back now; a truant no longer but a downright fugitive.

Yet a fugitive carrying off spoils.

It was the flight of a raider--or a traitor?
This affair of the purloined brother, as I had named it to myself, had a very puzzling physiognomy.

The girl must have been desperate, I thought, hearing the grave voice of Fyne well enough but catching the sense of his words not at all, except the very last words which were: "Of course, it's extremely distressing." I looked at him inquisitively.

What was distressing him?
The purloining of the son of the poet-tyrant by the daughter of the financier-convict.
Or only, if I may say so, the wind of their flight disturbing the solemn placidity of the Fynes' domestic atmosphere.