At this time they were opportunely invited to leave the hurry of London for a few days in Norfolk. A friend of Haversham had got together at Wroxham a fleet of wherries. Peter and Lady Mary joined the same boat for their last unclouded days together. Only Lady Mary knew how precious and irrevocable they were. For Peter they were slow days of agreeable idleness, as they glided from reach to reach of the quietest country in the world. Always there was the same circle of sky, with an idle mill and rows of grey-green sedges; the quiet lapping of water and plod of the quanting. Tiny villages dropped past them, with square towers and clusters of small buildings. Upon the third evening of the cruise, Lady Mary picked up some London letters at Potter Heigham. One was from Lord Wenderby. She opened it and read: "LADY MARY,--I hope you will not regard this as a breach of our contract. Things are moving quickly in the Cabinet. I must decide at once to stay or go. I can wait for you six days. If you cannot now help me to break with my ties and interests of the moment I must put away our vision of the future. "I saw you in the Park the other day. I cannot hope you will ever be my wife. Believe that I wish you all the happiness of your heart. "WENDERBY." Lady Mary answered at once. She told Wenderby to come for his answer on her return to London. Meantime, if he needed to know her mind, let him believe all that he wished. Now she had only two days. She decided to tell Peter in London when they returned. Here she would part from him without a destroying word. The last evening of the cruise was warm with a breeze from the land to the sea, enough for sailing. Peter and Lady Mary sat, after an early dinner, together on deck. Laughter came from the drawing-room below--a London drawing-room planted in a wilderness of marsh and water. Sunset was burning itself out. Light was flung upon miles of water, making of the country about them a glimmering palette. The mill on the horizon was derelict, standing black and crude, an eyeless giant, blind to the colour of earth and sky. Merriment swelled below them. A clever musician parodied the latest phase of a modern French composer. "This," said Peter with a sardonic gesture at the people below, "is a return to Nature." "You are more scathing than you know," answered Lady Mary with a smile. "You are listening to a burlesque of the latest thing in music, written in the scale of the Opopo islanders. The Opopo islanders can only count up to five. We are determined to be primitive." "I should like to sail away into all that," said Peter, waving his arm vaguely at the sunset. Lady Mary caught at the idea. "Can you sail?" she asked. "Pretty fair," said Peter. "Then why not?" Lady Mary pointed to the dinghy beneath them. The mast was shipped, and the sail folded. "Will you come?" asked Peter. "It is our last evening." Peter did not hear the sorrow of her phrase.