"I'm off to Hilsey for a fortnight's holiday. Going at four o'clock." "Losing no time," Sir Christopher remarked with a smile. "Well, it's jolly in the country in the spring, isn't it?" Arthur asked, rather defensively. "Yes, it's jolly in the spring--jolly anywhere in the spring, Arthur." Arthur caught the kindly banter in his tone; he flushed a little and smiled in answer. "It was very jolly there in the winter too, if you come to that, sir. Ripping skating!" "Does all the family skate?" "No, not all the family." He laughed. "Just enough of it, Sir Christopher." The old man sat back in his chair and sipped his hock. "Some men can get on without a woman about them but, so far as I've observed you, I don't think you're that sort. If you must have a woman about you, there's a good deal to be said for its being your own wife, and not, as so often happens, somebody else's. May we include that among our recent discoveries?" "But your own wife costs such a lot of money." "So do the others--very often. Don't wait too long for money, or for too much of it. Things are jolliest in the spring!" "I suppose I'm rather young. I'm only twenty-five, you know." "And a damned good age for making love too!" Sir Christopher pronounced emphatically. "Oh, of course, if that's your experience, sir!" laughed Arthur. Sir Christopher grew graver. "Does the wound heal at Hilsey?" "Yes, I think so--slowly." "Surgery's the only thing sometimes; when you can't cure, you must cut. At any rate we won't think hardly of our beautiful friend. I don't believe, though, that you're thinking of her at all, you young rascal! You're thinking of nothing but that train at four o'clock." Arthur was silent a moment or two. "I daresay that some day, when it's a bit farther off, I shall be able to look at it all better--to see just what happened and what it came to. But I can't do that now. I--I haven't time." They had finished lunch. He came and rested his hand on the old man's shoulder. "At any rate, it's brought me your friendship. I can't begin to tell you what that is to me, sir." Sir Christopher looked up at him. "I can tell you what it is to me, though. It's a son for my barren old age--and I'm quite ready to take a daughter too, Arthur." Arthur went off by the four o'clock train, with his copy of _The Times_ in his pocket. But out of that pocket it never emerged, save in the privacy of his den, and there it was hidden carefully. Never in all his life did he confess that he had "happened" to bring it down with him. For, on the platform at Hilsey, the first thing he saw was Judith waiting for him. As soon as he put his head out of the window, she ran towards him, brandishing _The Times_ in her hand. No motive to produce his copy, no need to confess that he had brought it!