In this Paddy was not sorry to acquiesce. She wanted to be alone, and the shaded light was soothing. Through a dim sense of confusion—a confusion that she felt incapable of unravelling as to what had, and what had not, taken place—there were certain recollections that made her cheeks burn, and caused her to hide shrinking eyes in the cushions. How, oh how, was she ever to face him with those recollections lying between them? She half knew that in the first moment she had clung to him, and she had an indistinct remembrance that he had kissed her hair, and spoken in a low, passionate voice, calling her soft, endearing names. Afterward, certainly, they had regained their old footing, but what about that long sleep? Under what conditions had she been able to sleep thus peacefully in the midst of such discomfort? That was the question Paddy dare not face, remembering his pallid cheeks and blue lips, while the old coachman brought the circulation back into his cramped limbs. She half hoped he would come to-day, while she was lying in the darkened room. It would be easier to get through the interview in the dark. But he did not come, and she lay restlessly, puzzling out the enigma in which their adventure had placed her. What about that hate of hers! Can one—_may_ one—hate one’s preserver! She half prayed he would let her thank him quietly, and then go away. For hate or no hate, she perhaps owed him her life, and gratitude was his due. But two days passed, and Lawrence did not come, and as she recovered further from the shock, she rallied herself, and felt more equal to the interview. She believed it was consideration for her that kept him away, and was grateful. In two days more her holiday would be up and she must return to London, and once away the adventure could be put aside. If only it had not been so hard to go— On the afternoon of the third day Paddy wandered alone to a little creek by the loch, and, sitting down on a fallen tree, sank her chin in her hands and gazed across the water with a whole world of yearning longing in her eyes at the thought of leaving it all and returning to the streets, and chimney-pots, and smuts. So rapt was she that she did not hear some one approach over the moss and stand silently beside her—some one who saw the yearning, and read it aright with mingled feelings of regret and gladness. “I began to think I’d never find you,” he said at last in his quietest way, and Paddy started violently, and flushed to the roots of her hair, while she continued gazing across the loch, quite unable to meet his eyes. He sat down on the log beside her, and leaned forward with his arms across his knees, playing idly with a twig he had picked up.