She eagerly assented, and he caught up his hat and ran out of the room, with a smile to her of glowing, eager anticipation which set her heart dancing in response. What a dear fellow he was! How good he had been to them all! He had saved quite a lot of Gaunt's money by taking them down to Worthing in the car. She did not ask herself why it was terrible to take her husband's money, but easy to take Gerald's. She ran away upstairs, calling to Tony. He appeared from his room, got up in a striped flannel suit, a soft linen collar, a most _recherché_ tie, and a Panama hat--a real one. "Why, Tony, you have made yourself a swell!" cried the girl. "Pretty decent, isn't it?" was the gratified reply. "Left me any brekker?" "Plenty, but be quick, we have to start in twenty minutes." "Not me, sis. I'm going with Mullins Major to Arundel." "To Arundel! Oh, no, Tony, you are going with Gerald and me in the car!" "Not much. This is heaps better. Good old Gerald bought us the ticket--front places, and he has given me half a sov. for our grub. Isn't he great?" "Oh, Tony!" She stood back as the boy ran down the stairs whistling gaily. "Did Gerald give you that suit, too, and that overwhelmingly elegant hat?" "He did. Took me into the town the first day we got here and rigged me out." Virgie burst out laughing. She was so glad that Tony should be young--should put on a bit of "swank." How dear of Gerald to be so good to him! Money makes life very easy. The thought turned her grave once more. Am I mercenary? she asked herself. Does love of money mean the desire to obtain good doctors and nursing, to educate a boy well, to live cleanly and keep out of debt? With a sigh she admitted that her marriage had been mercenary. Yet how small a share of life's good things would have prevented her from making so hideous a mistake--a mistake which as yet she had hardly begun to pay for. Oh, why, why, had Gerald stepped aside and failed her at the critical moment? "If I had only had patience, if only I had waited," she told herself, "it would have come right! He as good as told me so that first night we dined together. I ought to have refused to do what I knew to be wrong, and left the consequences to God." She made herself ready for the drive, slipped into Pansy's room, and to her relief found the child quite prepared for her going. "Gerald told me yesterday that he should take you," she said sedately. Gerald was then heard calling for Virgie, and with a hasty kiss she ran off. Both the plotters heaved a sigh of relief when they found she took Tony's defection in good part. The boy came down from his half-eaten breakfast to see them off, and the car spun away, up to Broadwater and Sompting, and on along the northern slopes of those magical South Downs, the love of which can never fade from a Sussex heart.