"Not at all," said Miss Penny. "If you could both trace back you would probably find the same original spring of action--a chance word from some common friend, or some article you have both read. Then, when circumstances loosed the spring, you both shot in the same direction. What was it loosed your spring, Mr. Graeme?" "Well,--I wanted to get away out of things. I'm busy on a book, you see, and I'd heard of Sark--" "Same here!" said Miss Penny--"less the book. We wanted to get away out of things--and people, and we'd heard of Sark, and here we are. Was it you suggested Sark, or I, Meg?" "I'm sure I don't know, dear. You, I should think." "I will take all the credit of it." Just then Mrs. Carre, who had been down to John Philip's for bread, turned in out of the road with a loaf under each arm. At sight of all her guests fraternising, her face lit up with a broad smile, and Scamp, who had whirled in after her, twisted himself into hieroglyphics of delight and rent the air with his expression of it, and then launched himself at Punch and taxed him with perfidy in going off to bathe without him. "Ah, you have med friends with the leddies," she said to Graeme. "Scamp! Bad beast, be qui-et! A couche!" "I'm doing my best, Mrs. Carre." "That iss very nice." "Very nice, indeed!" And Miss Penny asserted afterwards that he was looking at Margaret all the time. "I told them you were a nice quiet gentleman and wouldn't disturb them at all," said Mrs. Carre. "I'll do my very best not to. So far the disturbance has been all on their side, but I'm standing it very well, you see. You'll let me show you the sights, won't you?" he said to Miss Brandt. "I've been here a month, you see, and I know it all like a book. I've done nothing but moon about since I came--" "I thought you were busy on a book," said Miss Penny. "Er--well, you see, you have to do a lot of thinking before you start writing. I've been thinking," and perhaps more than one of them had a fairly shrewd suspicion as to the line his thoughts had taken. "Now, if I don't cut away and dress, and get my breakfast and clear out, I shall be in the way of the ladies, and Mrs. Carre will never forgive me," he said. "I do hope you will include me in your plans for the day." His bow included them both, and he sped off up the path through the high hedge, with the two dogs racing alongside. "Meg, my child, we will go for a little walk," said Miss Penny. V The salt Sark air is uplifting at all times. The sea-water has a crisp effervescence of its own which tones and braces mind and body alike. Add to these the wonder of Margaret's unexpected presence there and, if the gift of large imagination be yours, you may possibly arrive--within a hundred miles or so--of the state of John Graeme's feelings as he raced up that path and bounded up the stairs of the Red House four at a time.