“It is not my dog,” said Lord Tilbury between set teeth, repelling Amy as she endeavoured in her affable way to climb on to his neck. “Not a member of the ’ousehold, sir? Just a neighbour making a friendly call? I see. Now I wonder,” said the policeman, “if any of my mates ’ave approached you on the matter of this concert in aid of a charitubulorganisation which is not only most deserving in itself but is connected with a body of men to ’oom you as a nouse’older will----” “G-r-r-h!” said Lord Tilbury. He bounded out of the gate. Dimly, as he waddled down Burberry Road, the grey flannel trousers brushing the pavement with a musical swishing sound, there came to him, faint but pursuing, the voice of the indefatigable policeman: “This charitubulorganisationtowhichIallude----” Out of the night, sent from heaven, there came a crawling taxicab. Lord Tilbury poured himself in and sank back on the seat, a spent force. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX SAM HEARS GOOD NEWS Kay came out into the garden of San Rafael. Darkness had fallen now, and the world was full of the sweet, wet scents of an autumn night. She stood still for a moment, sniffing, and a little pang of home-sickness shot through her. The garden smelled just like Midways. This was how she always remembered Midways most vividly, with the shadows cloaking the flower beds, the trees dripping and the good earth sending up its incense to a starlit sky. When she shut her eyes she could almost imagine that she was back there. Then somebody began to whistle in the road and a train clanked into the station and the vision faded. A faint odour of burning tobacco came to her, and on the lawn next door she saw the glow of a pipe. “Sam!” she called. His footsteps crunched on the gravel and he joined her at the fence. “You’re a nice sort of person, aren’t you?” said Kay. “Why didn’t you come back?” “I had one or two things to think about.” “Willoughby dashed in for a minute and told me an incoherent story. So the man got away?” “Yes.” “Poor Lord Tilbury!” said Kay, with a sudden silvery little bubble of laughter. Sam said nothing. “What did he want, by the way?” “He came to tell me that he had had a cable from my uncle saying that I was to go back at once.” “Oh!” said Kay with a little gasp, and there was silence. “Go back--to America?” “Yes.” “At once?” “Wednesday’s boat, I suppose.” “Not this very next Wednesday?” “Yes.” There was another silence. The night was as still as if the clock had slipped back and Valley Fields had become the remote country spot of two hundred years ago. “Are you going?” “I suppose so.” From far away, out in the darkness, came the faint grunting of a train as it climbed the steep gradient of Sydenham Hill. An odd forlorn feeling swept over Kay. “Yes, I suppose you must,” she said. “You can’t afford to offend your uncle, can you?” Sam moved restlessly, and there was a tiny rasping sound as his hand scraped along the fence. “It isn’t that,” he said.