Mrs. Jackson retired to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and to ponder over his remark. The result of her reflections was shown in the unusual strength of the tea and in an extra thickness of butter on the toast. She decked the table with an assortment of jams, and carefully closed the door which opened into the lane, although the April sunlight was pouring through it in a warm flood. It seemed as if Gordon had gained an additional value and herself an additional responsibility. She even took a cushion from the sofa and placed it on his chair, and then waited on him while he breakfasted, nodding and smiling a discreet but inquisitive sympathy. On Gordon, however, her pantomime was lost. His thoughts no longer chimed to marriage bells. For Wastdale, and this farmhouse in particular, were associated in his mind with the recollection of two friends, of whom one was dead in reality, the other dead to him; and always vividly responsive to the impression of the moment, he had stepped back across the interval of the past three years, and now dwelled with a strange sense of loneliness amidst a throng of quickening memories. The woman, however, got the upper hand in Mrs. Jackson, and she suggested, tentatively-- "Then maybe, Mr. Gordon, you are going to be married?" "You can omit the 'maybe,'" he laughed. "Well, I should never have thought it!" she exclaimed. "Time brings in his revenges," said he. "The way you three gentlemen used to rail at women! Well, there!" "But, then, they weren't women. They were Aunt Sallies of our own contriving--mere pasteboard. We were young and we didn't know." Mrs. Jackson inquired the date and place of the ceremony. At Keswick, she was told, and in a week's time. She floated out garrulous on a tide of sentiment. She hoped that Mr. Gordon's two friends would follow his example and find out their mistake, not noticing the shadow which her words brought to her lodger's face. She dropped the name of Hawke and the shadow deepened. "I rather fancy," he said abruptly, "that Mr. Hawke found out the mistake at exactly the same time as I did myself." Mrs. Jackson was a quick woman, and she took his meaning from the inflection of his voice. "He was your rival!" "I have not seen much of him lately." She thought for a moment and said, "Then it's just as well he's staying at the Inn." Gordon sprang to his feet. "At the Inn?" he exclaimed. "Yes," she answered. "He still comes to climb at Wastdale every Easter. But he has always stayed at the Inn, since you and Mr. Arkwright have stopped away."