"This morning. His letter arrived by the first post, and he came in right on top of it." "His letter?" "Yes. He wrote asking me to marry him." "Oh?" Pat traced an arabesque on the grass with the toe of her shoe. "It was a beautiful letter." "Was it?" "Very. I didn't think Hugo was capable of it." John remained for a moment without speaking. He searched his mind for care-free, debonair remarks, and found it singularly short of them. "Hugo's a splendid chap," he contrived to say at length. "Yes--so bright!" "Yes." "Nice-looking fellow." "Yes." "A thoroughly good chap." "Yes." John found that he had exhausted the subject of Hugo's qualities. He relapsed into a gray silence and half thought of treading on an offensively cheerful worm which had just appeared beside his shoe and seemed to be asking for it. Pat stifled a little yawn. "Did you have a nice time yesterday?" she asked carelessly. "Not so very nice," said John. "I dare say you heard that we had a burglary up at the Hall? I went off to catch the criminals and they caught me!" "What!" "I was fool enough to let myself be drugged, and when I woke up I was locked in a room with bars on the windows. I only got out an hour or so ago." "Johnnie!" "However, it all ended happily. I've got back the stuff that was stolen." "But, Johnnie! I thought you had gone off picnicking with that Molloy girl." "It may have been her idea of picnicking. She was one of the gang. Quite the leading spirit, I gather." He had lowered his eyes, wondering once more whether it would not be judicious to put it across that worm after all, when an odd choking sound caused him to look up. Pat's mouth had opened, and she was staring at him wide-eyed. And if she had ever looked more utterly beautiful and marvellous, John could not remember the occasion. Something seemed to clutch at his throat, and the garden, seen indistinctly through a mist, danced a few steps in a tentative sort of way, as if it were trying out something new that had just come over from America. And then, as the mist cleared, John found that he and Pat were not, as he had supposed, alone. Standing beside him was a rugged and slightly unkempt person clad in a bearskin which had obviously not been made to measure, in whom he recognized at once that Stone Age Ancestor of his who had given him a few words of advice the other night on the path leading to the boathouse. The Ancestor was looking at him reproachfully. In appearance he was rather like Sergeant-Major Flannery, and when he spoke it was with that well-remembered voice.