"Gerald is afraid he may be obliged to go back to town to-morrow," remarked her mother, as they sat down to table. "He wants to have one good day's motoring for the last, and as the driving does you so much good, I have arranged to stay with Pansy and leave you free to go with him." "Tony and I! Oh, how splendid!" cried Virgie, sparkling. "I, too, must leave to-morrow, and I want to have a really delightful day for the last." She broke off a little abruptly, afraid lest what she said might be by implication uncomplimentary to her husband. Both her hearers remarked it, and they exchanged glances. They did not say that Tony would not be going. Instead, Gerald produced a map from his pocket, and spread it on a corner of the table. "I have more or less thought out a route," said he. "I wonder if you will approve. There were two places which you told me that you would particularly like to see--one was Bodiam Castle. The other was the Roman Pavement at Bignor. I have been talking to Baines (his chauffeur), and he says it would be quite possible to do both. It is a fifty-mile run to Bodiam--less than two hours. We could lunch on the way back--say at Lewes--and go on to Bignor, where we could have tea, and get back any time we like." "How simply perfect!" laughed Virgie as she helped herself to marmalade with an appetite which was so recent an acquirement that she herself could not understand it. Nobody present noticed it. Mrs. Mynors would never have known had her daughter starved herself to death under her eyes. Across the girl's mind stole the thought of some one who had watched every mouthful, had hectored and bullied her into eating. She leant across to Gerald, and perused the map with attention. "What a way it seems! Bodiam is in the very eastest corner of Sussex. And Bignor is more than the whole way back--positively on the other side of Worthing! Are you sure it won't be too far? I am so afraid Pansy will miss me." "You forget," put in her mother, "Pansy is going to have the first of her electric baths to-day, and nurse says she will have to be very quiet for some hours after it. Besides, it will accustom her to the idea of being without you." "Yes. That is true," was the reply, while a shadow crept over the gladness of the face. "I expect Osbert is beginning to be restive, isn't he?" asked her mother, in order to gauge the effect of a sudden reference to Gaunt. The effect, as always, was a momentary confusion, slight but evident. She soon rallied. "He is very patient," she replied, while her thoughts went obstinately back to the dream garden, veiled in mist, to the man who approached her, groping blindly, to his words, "Are you coming back? No!" "It seems wonderful that he _can_ be patient under the circumstances," observed Gerald drily. He did not pursue the subject. He was folding up his map. "I told the chauffeur to be round in exactly twenty minutes from now. I must bolt, and do a change. Can you be ready in twenty minutes?"