This was on the occasion of a little dinner party at Northrepps to which he had come with Mabel; Major Hopscotch Millet and one or two others were among the guests. Major Millet, who had been in particularly hopscotch, Ri--te _O_! form throughout the evening, was walking back, but Mabel invited him to accompany them in the ancient village fly. "Ri--te _O_!" said Major Millet with enormous enthusiasm. Nona came with them to the door on their departure. Sabre was last down the steps. "Well, I shan't see you again till October," she said. "No, till October." He no more than touched her hand and turned away. He had kept his resolution. She was close behind him. He heard her give the tiniest little catch at her breath. She said, "Shall I write to you, Marko?" He turned towards her. She was smiling as though it was a chaffing remark she had made. Her shield! And he answered her from behind his own shield, "Oh, well, I'm bad at letters, you know." But their eyes met with no shields before them; and she was wounded, for he just caught her voice as he went down the steps, "Oh, Marko, do write to me!" The Ri--te O voice of the Hopscotch. "Come on, Sabre, my boy! Come on! Come on!" He got into the cab. Major Millet had taken the seat next Mabel. "Ri--te _O_, Cabby!" the Hopscotch hailed. As the horse turned with the staggering motions proper to its burden of years and infirmity, Mabel inquired, "What was Lady Tybar talking to you about all that time?" He said, "Oh, just saying good-by." But he was thinking, "That's a fourth question: Why did you say, 'Oh, Marko, do write to me'? Or was that the answer to the other questions, although I never asked them?" II He did not write to her. But in October a ridiculous incident impelled afresh the urgent desire to ask her the questions: an incident no less absurd than the fact that in October Low Jinks knocked her knee. Mabel spent two months of the summer on visits to friends. In August she was with her own people on their annual holiday at Buxton. There Sabre, who had a fortnight, joined her. It happened to be the fortnight of the croquet tournament, and it happened that Major Millet was also in Buxton. Curiously enough he had also been at Bournemouth, whence Mabel had just come from cousins, and they had played much croquet there together. It was projected as great fun to enter the Buxton tournament in partnership, and Sabre did not see a great deal of Mabel. It was late September when they resumed life together at Penny Green. In their absence the light railway linking up the Garden Home with Tidborough and Chovensbury had been opened with enormous excitement and celebration; and Mabel became at once immersed in paying calls and joining the activities of the new and intensely active community. Then Low Jinks knocked her knee.