Every one looked at me for an explanation. "How did you manage to get from the ledge?" I asked feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not dreamed it. "From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure. Of course I had to walk back round the hill; but I did not mind. I was thankful that it was the plank and not you that fell in." "I--I thought--you could not get from the ledge," I muttered. The possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me; and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to one another. But, when he laughed too--and he did until the tears came into his eyes--there was not an ache or pain in my body--and I had cut my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock--that hurt me one-half as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not; and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and father drove me home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an ache in every part of me, he was gone. "He asked me to tell you," said Clare, not looking up from the fly she was tying at the window, "that he thought you were the bravest girl he had ever met." So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. "No, Clare," I said coldly, "he did not say that; he said 'the bravest little girl.'" For indeed, lying upstairs with the window open I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsören. As for father he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake. "You've generally some common-sense, my dear," he said that day at dinner, "and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy the man was in danger, I--can--not--imagine!" "Father," Clare put in suddenly, "your elbow is upsetting the salt." And as I had to move my seat at that moment to avoid the glare of the stove which was falling on my face, we never thought it out. CHAPTER II HIS STORY I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance in town was limited, and partly because I cared little for it. But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing, the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. All three had a holiday flavour about them wholesome to recall in Scotland Yard; and as I had expected that, playtime over, I should see no more of them, I was pleased to find that Mr. Guest had not forgotten me, and pleased also--foreseeing that we should kill our fish over again--to regard his invitation to dine at a quarter to eight as a royal command.