When I left Mrs. Carroll I did not go out at once, but scribbled first a note to Katherine, telling her I had gone to the summer-house, and should wait for her there all afternoon. I then went in search of Jim, who had always been my friend, and whom I could rely upon absolutely. I found him working with Thomas in the greenhouses, and, as soon as I could attract his attention, I beckoned him outside. He was a very different Jim from the one who had climbed a ladder to see my skin peeling off, though he had the same round rosy candid face, like a ripe russet apple, and though he still played doleful tunes on his flute. But he had developed amazingly: he had grown into a strapping big fellow, with limbs like a youthful Hercules. When I explained to him that I wanted him to give a note to Miss Dale, but that nobody must see him do it, he promised to try his best. I went on to the summer-house and lay down among the bracken close by. I had been there fully two hours before I saw Katherine coming. She smiled brightly as I rose from my ferny bed to greet her. “Why did I come without an umbrella?” she exclaimed gaily. “It’s just going to pour!” And she turned to look at the heavy clouds that were gliding up rapidly against the wind. “You can shelter in the summer-house,” I said, laconically. “I loathe summer-houses, especially when they’re like this old thing, crammed with earwigs and spiders.” “The rain is going to be heavy: you’d better come in now,” I went on, without attempting to emulate her lightness of manner. I dusted the rough seat for her with my pocket-handkerchief, in silence, just as the first big drops came pattering down on the leaves. She sat down, and I stood near the door, looking at her. “Mrs. Carroll told me your mother arrived to-day, because of some letter of yours about me.” Katherine coloured a little. “I know,” she answered, eagerly. “It’s awfully silly of mamma. I’ve been talking to her about it.” “And you are to go home at once――to-morrow――perhaps this evening.” She laughed. “Certainly not this evening. How could we? And at any rate, we should have been going in a few days. But I told mamma she was taking it all absurdly seriously, and behaving exactly like a furious parent in a novel.” “It is serious to me,” I said, quietly, “though to you it may be amusing.” That she should laugh in this way hurt me deeply. It had grown rapidly dark, and now a heavy rain began, cold and sad, sweeping through the trees, very soon making it plain that the summer-house was in need of repair. From the distance there came the crying of a sea-gull, a mournful, solitary note. “Don’t be angry with me, Peter,” said Katherine, coming to the door and looking out. “I know it was stupid of me to write, but I never dreamt of mamma coming over like this.... Why has it got so dark?”