Miles stood in the pathway looking down at the muffled figure in the hammock. There was little to be seen of Meg save her rumpled, hatless head. She was much too economical of her precious caps to waste one in a hammock. She had slept for nearly two hours, then Hannah roused her with a cup of soup. She was drowsy and warm and comfortable, and her usually pale cheeks were almost as pink as the apple-blossom buds above her head. "Do you want to sleep? Or may I stop and talk to you a bit?" Miles asked, when he had found the somewhat battered cigarette case and restored it to her. "As I'm very plainly off duty, I suppose you may stay and talk--if I fall asleep in the middle you must not be offended. You'll find plenty of chairs in the tool house." When Miles returned Meg had lit her cigarette, and he begged a light from her. What little hands she had! How fine-grained and delicate her skin! Again he felt that queer lump in his throat at the absurd, sweet pathos of her. He placed his chair where he had her full in view, not too near, yet comfortably so for conversation. Jan had swung the hammock very high, and Meg looked down at Miles over the edge. "It is unusual," she said, "to find a competent nurse spending her morning in this fashion, but if you know Miss Ross at all, you will already have realised that under her placid exterior she has a will of iron." "I shouldn't say _you_ were lacking in determination." "Oh, I'm nothing to Jan. _She_ exerts physical force. Look at me perched up here! How can I get down without a bad fall, swathed like a mummy in wraps; while my employer does my work?" "But you don't want to get down. You look awfully comfortable." "I am awfully comfortable--but it's most ... unprofessional--please don't tell anybody else." Meg closed her eyes, looking rather like a sleepy kitten, and Miles watched her in silence with a pain at his heart. Something kept saying over and over again: "Six years ago that girl there ran off with Walter Brooke. Six years ago that apparently level-headed, sensible little person was dazzled by the pinchbeck graces of that epicure in sensations." Miles fully granted his charm, his gentle melancholy, his caressing manner; but with it all Miles felt that he was so plainly "a wrong-'un," so clearly second-rate and untrustworthy--and a nice girl ought to recognise these things intuitively. Miles looked very sad and grave, and Meg, suddenly opening her eyes, found him regarding her with this incomprehensible expression. "You are not exactly talkative," she said. "I thought, perhaps, you wanted to rest, and would rather not talk. Maybe I'm a bit of a bore, and you'd rather I went away?" "You have not yet asked after William." "I hoped to find William, but he's nowhere to be seen." "He's with Jan and the children. I think"--here Meg lifted her curly head over the edge of the hammock--"he is the very darlingest animal in the world. I love William." "You do! I knew you would."