The life he had led in that dream-world, when James the First was King, seemed to him now a very little thing compared with the present glory, of being the head of the house of Arden, of being the Providence, the loving over-lord of all these good peasant folk, who loved his name.
Yet the thought of those days when he was plain Richard Arden, son of Sir Richard Arden, living in the beautiful house at Deptford, fretted at all his joy in his present state. That, and the thought of all he owed to him who had been Lord of Arden until he came, with his lame foot and his heirship, fretted his soul as rust frets steel. These people had received him, loved him, been kind to him when he was only a tramp boy. And he was repaying them by taking away from them priceless possessions. For so he esteemed the lordship of Arden and the old lands and the old Castle.
Suppose he gave them up—the priceless possessions? Suppose he went away to that sure retreat that was still left him—the past? It was a sacrifice. To give up the here and now, for the far off, the almost forgotten. All that happy other life, that had once held all for which he cared, seemed thin and dream-like beside the vivid glories of the life here, now. Yet he remembered how once that life, in King James's time, had seemed the best thing in the world, and how he had chosen to come back from it, to help a helpless middle-aged ne'er-do-weel of a tramp—Beale. Well, he had helped Beale. He had done what he set out to do. For Beale's sake he had given up the beautiful life for the sordid life. And Beale was a new man, a man that Dickie had made. Surely now he could give up one beautiful life for another—for the sake of these, his flesh and blood, who had so readily, so kindly, so generously set him in the place that had been theirs?
More and more it came home to Dickie that this was what he had to do. To go back to the times when James the First was King, and never to return to these times at all. It would be very bitter—it would be like leaving home never to return. It was exile. Well, was Richard Lord Arden to be afraid of exile—or of anything else? He must not just disappear either, or they would search and search for him, and never know that he was gone forever. He must slip away, and let the father of Edred and Elfrida be, as he had been, Lord Arden. He must make it appear that he, Richard Lord Arden, was dead. He thought over this very carefully. But if he seemed to be dead, Edred and Elfrida would be very unhappy. Well, they should not be unhappy. He would tell them. And then they would know that he had behaved well, and as an Arden should. Don't be hard on him for longing for just this "little human praise." There are very few of us who can do without it; who can bear not to let some one, very near and dear, know that we have behaved rather decently on those occasions when that is what we have done.
It took Dickie a long time to think out all this, clearly, and with no mistakes. But at last his mind was made up.
And then he asked Edred and Elfrida to come up to the cave with him, because he had something to tell them. When they were all there, sitting on the smooth sand by the underground stream, Dickie said—
"Look here. I'm not going on being Lord Arden."
"You can't help it," said Edred.
"Yes, I can. You know how I went and lived in King James's time. Well, I'm going there again—for good."
