_This very girl had something to do with his official engagement to me!_ Somehow or other, she was his “reason” for appearing to have a _fiancée_ at all—a _fiancée_ upon whom he’d been so particular to impress that “this affair would never end in marriage!” Possibly my employer and that girl were already secretly—but really, not nominally—betrothed to one another? It looked like it. It looked uncommonly like it. At something he said she blushed quite rosily. Oh, and they mustn’t think I didn’t notice her shake of the head and her quick little silencing frown at my official _fiancé_ when her father, in a tea-coloured alpaca dust-coat, at last left off fussing over his engines and asked them if they—calling them “_mes enfans_”—were ready to start? “Oh—but are you going too, then, Billy?” his mother put in quickly. Monsieur Charrier answered with a flow of French about “_affaires_,” and documents which he had left at his hotel in Holyhead, which it would be so much, so much better if Mr. Waters would spare but a little half-hour to investigate. “Very good of you to give me the opportunity, sir,” said Mr. Waters. “I can get a train back, mother.” “Ah, but no, but no! The auto will be again at your service as soon as we have dined at that dog of an hotel,” declared the stout Frenchman. “I will bring your son home quite safely, madame, to you and”—with a particularly hollow show of politeness—“to mademoiselle!” Here his daughter murmured something about the four seats in the auto, plenty of space for mademoiselle his _fiancée_ if she would deign to accompany—— I expect Mademoiselle Charrier knew well enough how safe it was to issue that invitation! So did my employer, when he struck in with “Ah, that’s very nice of you,” then turned and addressed me directly for the first time since we had walked up from the beach together. “Yes! That would be a good idea, wouldn’t it? You’ll come along too, won’t you, Nancy? We could get a trap back.” I excused myself as naturally as I could manage it, with something about being rather tired. It was true enough. As that cherry-coloured car panted, jerked, then whizzed off down the stone-wall-bordered Holyhead road, with its trio of passengers, I felt almost as if it had driven straight over me. And I felt as if I shouldn’t have cared very much one way or the other if it had! CHAPTER XXV THE FIRST AVOWAL I suppose I must have dropped off to sleep directly I threw myself down on my bed, and have slept for some time. It was growing dusk in my little bedroom; outside my window veils of purple gauze were drawn over sand-hills and shore, and the tide was far out again by the time I was awakened by a tap at my bedroom door. “Yes?” I called drowsily, wondering, for a second, where I was, and what horrible thing it was that seemed lying in wait for me to wake up properly and remember it. The door opened and Mrs. Waters came in, carrying a little tray.