“Then you keep it for—for her, until then,” I broke in, with a little laugh that sounded wild in my own ears, and I pressed the pendant with the christening-day curl back into his mother’s hand. She said nothing for a moment. Presently, in the dusk, I felt her long arm slip round me, and her hesitating, gentle voice was saying very earnestly and pitifully: “Nancy! You do care for my boy, don’t you?” And then into that day of queer and crowded horrible happenings, there was packed yet another. In my own ears I heard my own voice answering his mother’s appeal with words I could scarcely recognize as my own. Yet it was no freak of imagination this time. It was no mad fancy like that on the beach. It was I, Monica Trant, who in that voice so shaking and strained cried desperately: “Oh, yes! _Yes!_ You _know_ I care for him!” And with that avowal in my ears I felt as if some stranger had cried aloud a secret that I had never even guessed, but that now—_now_ I knew to be coming true. I found myself putting out my hands before me, almost as if this growing knowledge were something that I could hold away from myself. For a time I must hold it away; I _must_! For at least as long as I remained here. I clenched my hands tightly, dropping them to my sides, using all my will to bring myself to speak in my usual voice again. “Will you tell me what time it is, Mrs. Waters?” “Half-past seven. You’ll go to bed early, dear, won’t you? You won’t stop up!” “No, I’ll go to bed.” “And to-morrow—Nancy, I don’t want to say much more. Only, Life promises to be so golden, dear, for you and him!” It was then that she gave me a sting that I wish I could forget. I _shall_ forget, but not at once, that his mother said: “_Fate has been merciful to let you two meet._ Don’t let that be spoiled! To-morrow——” I held her hand with that little locket in it clutched for a minute against my breast. “It shall be different to-morrow,” I whispered before she went, keeping my meaning to myself. It will, of course, be “different” enough! * * * * * Half-past seven. There was just time, then, to send my wire. I crept out silently over the sand-hills and away to the tiny post office where, thank goodness, the postmistress’s literal English won’t allow her to read much between the lines of this. “To Harradine, Marconi Mansions, Battersea, London. “Please send off immediately to Trant, care Waters, Porth Cariad, Anglesey, telegram as follows: (Begins.) ‘Please return at once; am ill, must see you, Cicely.’ (Ends.)—From TOTS.” If she only has the sense to answer that correctly, and at once! CHAPTER XXVI “ALL CHANGE HERE” Cicely’s answering wire—for a wonder correctly worded—arrived this morning at breakfast as I came down.