There came over her pretty face that curious, obstinate look which he had already seen there often enough to dread. Also she made him feel ashamed of himself. But how attractive she looked--how fresh and dainty--like a newly opened rose! Katty had twisted up her hair anyhow, but that only made her look younger, and more natural. "Let's come out into the garden," she said coaxingly. "Surely you can stay for a few minutes? This is the very first time you've ever been to see me in the morning! Why not telephone through and say you've been delayed,--that you can't be at the Bank till eleven?" She was edging him as she spoke towards the corner where, behind a screen, there stood the telephone instrument. As if compelled to obey, he took up the receiver, and uttered the familiar words, "Pewsbury 4." And at once there came an answer. "Is that you, Privet? What a comfort it is to know that I can always rely on your being there, whoever else isn't! This is only to say that I have been delayed, and that I don't expect to be at the Bank till eleven." Then came the calming, comforting answer, "Very good. That'll be all right, sir. There's nothing much doing this morning, from what I could make out when I was looking over your letters just now." So Godfrey Pavely, feeling rather as if he was being driven along by a pleasant fate, hung the receiver up, and followed the blue-garbed figure out of doors, into a little pleasance now filled with exquisite autumnal colouring, and pungent, searching scents. In the furthest corner of the walled garden, which was so much older than the house itself, was a tiny lawn surrounded by high hedges. There they could talk without any fear of being overlooked or overheard; and, before her visitor could stop her, Katty had dragged two cane-seated easy chairs out of her little summer-house. They both sat down, but this time Katty warily remained silent. She was waiting for her companion to begin. "You weren't serious, were you?" he said at last, and she felt the underlying pain and surprise in his voice. "You don't really mean that you want to go away, Katty? Where would you go to? What would you do? Have the Standens asked you to go abroad again--not for a whole year, surely?" "No," she said slowly, "not the Standens. If you must know, I've been offered a furnished cottage rent-free by those friends of mine, the Haworths, who live near York. The truth is, I can't afford to keep up Rosedean! I hate saying this to you, but it's the truth." "If you didn't go away so much----" he began irritably. But she cut across him sharply, "After all, I've a right to go away if I like! But it isn't that, Godfrey. I've gone into it all--really I have! Even if I never left Rosedean I should still be too poor to go on living here comfortably." "How much too poor?" he asked.