“I don’t know. She hates me. And it would be horrible if she did, though Mrs. Carroll wouldn’t believe her.” I was silent a while. “But that isn’t really what I came up to tell you,” I suddenly began. Then I related what had happened yesterday in the wood. Owen stared in front of him at the drab, seedy-looking, little ducks, who were paddling about on the dirty sheet of water. A rat stole out, and seeing us scuttled back again. “Why did you behave like that? It was most extraordinary!” I made no answer. “It wasn’t very gentlemanly, you know,” Owen continued, “to say the least of it.” “I never said I was a gentleman,” I interrupted. “I’m not one, in the ordinary sense of the word, nor even in the other, according to you.” “Oh, that’s rot.” He sat trying to puzzle it out. He looked at me and unexpectedly smiled. I smiled too, but my heart was heavy as lead. “Well, that’s all I came up to tell you,” I muttered, “――not very much!” He saw I was not happy. “I know I’m not very experienced in matters of this kind,” he confessed, “but if I were you, Peter, I should go to Derryaghy and ask to see her. Would you like me to do anything?” “There’s nothing you could do. Would it not be better for me to write?” “I don’t think so. It might be easier.” “It would be. And suppose she won’t see me?” “You can only try.” “Well, I’ll go back and think it over.” “But won’t you stay, really?” “No. I must go.” “Before this happened she liked you very much――she told me so herself.” I shook my head. “It is all over. She will never speak to me again.” “If she doesn’t――――” He stopped. “What?” I asked. “She isn’t worth bothering about,” Owen concluded. “Oh, you don’t know.” “What was there, after all, so very dreadful? It’s not as if you were in any way repulsive!” He tried to persuade me to change my mind about going home as we walked toward the park gate, but I was firm. “Good-bye, Owen,” I said. “Thank you for coming. I will write to you if there is anything to write about.” I got on a tram, and he stood on the footpath, looking after me. CHAPTER LII Owen had cheered me up a little; I was glad I had come; and during my return journey I pondered the advice he had given me and decided that I must follow it. I waited till nine o’clock, by which hour I thought Gerald would probably have gone out, for I wanted to avoid him: then I went up to Derryaghy. So far as I could see, the only way was to call just as usual, and trust to luck to get a few minutes with Katherine alone.