Martha pondered a moment. "Well, I never took a prize at no country fair, or city one either, for my jells, or perserves, or anything else. I ain’t a boss housekeeper, an’ I don’t pertend to be, but my suggestion is—bright an’ early to-morra mornin’, me an’ my perservin’ kettle will wanda out to Crewesmere, as they call it. I’ll bring Sammy with me to pick, an’ sort the fruit, an’ Cora to wash, an’ heat the jars. They’re used to it. An’—you just tell Miss Katherine, if you’ll be so good, that she can heave the perserve-trouble off’n her chest. Tell her don’t worry. Mrs. Peckett ain’t the only one’s got a ’rule.’" *CHAPTER V* The day had been sultry, and sunset brought no relief. Evening fell windstill, breathless. For once Katherine was glad to obey her little martinet grandmother’s arbitrary regulation: Lights out at nine. She sat by her bedroom window looking out over a white, moonlit world, thinking black thoughts. Suddenly she rose, for no better reason, apparently, than that a quick, inner impulse of impatience against herself, must find vent in some outward act. "It’s dreadful! I’m growing bitter, hard, deceitful. I’m living a lie. Acting as if I were obedient, and respectful to her, and—feeling like a rebel every minute in the day. I’ve got to end it, somehow. I can’t go on like this any longer." Just outside her window a little balcony (the railed-in roof of the porte-cochère) shone like a silver patch against the darker foliage. The shadows of leaves cast an intricate pattern upon the moonlit space, and Katherine gazed at it abstractedly until a moving speck in the motionless night caught her attention, and fixed it. As she watched, the speck became a shape, the shape an automobile moving rapidly, almost noiselessly, toward the house, along the white ribbon of a driveway. Just before her window it stopped. "Hello!" called Dr. Ballard softly. Katherine hid a radiant smile in the folds of her shadowy curtain. "Sh!" she cautioned. "You’ll wake grandmother." "Then come down. I’ve something to tell you." "No. Too late!" "Nonsense!" "I can’t." "Oh, very well." His instant acceptance of her negative was not altogether agreeable. One moment, and he was bending over his steering-wheel, busying himself with the gear, probably preparatory to driving on and away. The next, he was out of the car, had scaled the porch-pillar, vaulted the low railing, and was calmly sitting not two feet away from her, Turk-fashion, upon the balcony floor. Katherine laughed. "I didn’t know you could climb like that." "I can’t. That wasn’t a climb. ’Twas a scramble. Bad work. But I’m out of practice." "You mustn’t stay. Grandmother wouldn’t like it. Remember, she forbade my having anything to do with you." "Sorry, but I don’t feel obliged to conform, on that account. If _you_ don’t like it, that’s another story." Katherine was silent. Dr. Ballard did not press the point.