“I can’t quite make out now how he gave me the slip. The door was closed as usual. He must have picked the lock. He’s as cunning as they make ’em, and nobody would have guessed at breakfast time that there was anything up.” Mr. Bradfield, who was walking towards the front door, stopped suddenly. “Where is Miss Christina now?” he asked. Mr. Graham-Shute answered. “She’s up in the Chinese-room, sewing for this tomfoolery my wife’s getting up.” “Mr. Donald has just gone up there with some things he’s been buying for her in the town,” added Stelfox. “That’s all right,” said Mr. Graham-Shute. “He’ll be hanging about there for the rest of the afternoon, so that if this poor fellow should get in there, she’ll have someone to stand by her.” “Stelfox,” said Mr. Bradfield as he left the house, “let somebody watch the door of the Chinese-room.” But this order was given too late. Chris had, indeed, been sewing upstairs, as Mr. Graham-Shute said, and Donald had returned from the town with his tapes and buttons. But several things had happened since then. In the first place, Donald had wanted to make his return an opportunity of making love to Chris. “Why, six pieces of tape! three reels of number forty! one packet of mixed needles! two boxes of pins! Mr. Shute, you’re a genius! You haven’t made a mistake!” “I should have done if it had been for anybody but you,” said Donald sentimentally. “But every word you say is engraved upon my heart. And don’t call me Mr. Shute. Call me Donald.” “I’ll call you anything you like if you won’t tread upon the nun’s veiling, and if you leave off snipping the tape with my scissors,” said Chris prosaically. “How awfully sharp you are with a fellow. Aren’t you nicer than that to _anybody_, Miss Christina?” “Not when they interfere with my work.” “But you’re _always_ like this to me.” “Always! I have known you two days.” “And how long must you know me before you leave off snubbing me?” “As long as you continue to behave as if I were a very silly girl, and you a very silly--_boy_, Mr. Shute.” “You think that’s very cutting, I suppose? Do you happen to know how old I am, Miss Abercarne?” “Oh, perhaps you’re only extremely juvenile for your years; at any rate I should have thought you were too old to worry a girl at your mother’s instigation.” Donald started, and grew crimson. “I--I--I don’t understand you, Miss Abercarne,” he stammered, seating himself on the table, and stabbing the precious nun’s veiling through and through with a bodkin which he had taken from a work-basket.