“You will be here at eight o’clock please, as you will have to drive Colonel Ogilvie to the station at Windermere in good time to catch the nine o’clock train. I shall not want you in the morning as I intend to take a walk; but you must be at Windermere to meet my father at five o’clock. If to-morrow afternoon there is any change in his plans he will wire the hotel people and they will let you know. Perhaps you had better call here on your way to Windermere as I may go over in the carriage. But if I am not here do not wait for me; I may possibly walk over. When you have left Colonel Ogilvie at Windermere to-night you will have to leave me back here. I am going to the depot with him.” Then she went into the doorway, and hurried to the sitting-room where she looked out into the garden--where the lilacs grew. CHAPTER XIII. INSTINCTIVE PLANNING Man’s unconscious action is a strange thing. Athlyne had just heard words which took from him a strain under which he had suffered for a whole week of waiting and watching; words which promised him the opportunity for which he had longed for many weeks. His nerves had been strung to tension so high that now it would seem only natural if the relief sent him into a sort of delirium. But he quietly lit a cigar, taking care that it was properly cut and properly lit, and smoked luxuriously as he moved across the garden and into the street. Joy from her window saw him go, and her admiration of his ease and self possession and magnificent self-reliance sent fresh thrills through her flesh. When Athlyne went out of the garden he had evidently made up his mind, consciously or unconsciously, to some other point in connection with the motor for he visited such shops as were open and made some purchases--caps, veils, cloaks and such like gear suitable for the use of a tall young lady. These he took with him in a hired carriage to the hotel at Bowness, where he added them to certain others already sent from London. Then he told the chauffeur to give the car a careful overhauling so that it be in perfect order, and went for a stroll up the Lake.