During the very last days of our stay he caught scarlet fever. In a
fortnight he was dead. The shock to me was very severe. It laid my
mother prostrate for months.

I was now by the death of Frank the representative of our branch of
the family, and a little fellow of uncomfortable importance. My uncle
Aylwin of Alvanley. being childless, was certain to leave me his
large estates, for he had dropped entirely away from the Aylwins of
Rington Manor, and also from the branch of the Aylwin family
represented by my kinsman Cyril.



II

THE MOONLIGHT CROSS OF THE GNOSTICS


I

My mother had some prejudice against a public school, and I was sent
to a large and important private one at Cambridge.

And go, with Winifred on my mind, I went one damp winter's morning to
Dullingham, our nearest railway station, on my way to Cambridge.

As concerns my school-days, I feel that all that will interest the
reader is this: as I rode through mile upon mile of the flat,
wide-stretching country, I made to myself a vow in connection with
Winifred,--a vow that when I left school I would do a certain thing