“You have a right to be sorry,” said Aunt Augusta indignantly. “Well, get your horses away and come in to lunch. And take off those wet things. Come away, Peg. You are a foolish little thing.” When Paul returned to the house after rubbing down the ponies and turning them loose in the paddock, he found Aunt Augusta’s mood quite changed, and he knew that Peggy must have told the whole story. Whether her recital had covered the story of his moral collapse remained an anxious uncertainty in his mind. He could only await developments. “Come here, boy,” said the Colonel, as Paul entered the room. “You are a plucky little chap, and I want to tell you that I shan’t forget what you did for Peg today.” The little Colonel’s voice grew suddenly husky. He shook Paul warmly by the hand and turned away, leaving Paul standing overwhelmed with embarrassment and filled with rage at Peggy. But an even more trying experience awaited the unhappy Paul, when Aunt Augusta came to him and, putting her arms around him, drew him close and kissed him, a most unusual proceeding with her. “Paul,” she said, “I am sorry I spoke to you as I did. And I am glad it was not your fault. I know I can trust Peggy with you always. Now, come away to lunch.” Paul found himself gulping and fighting hard to keep back the tears, tears caused partly by Aunt Augusta’s unusual demonstration of affection and partly by his furious indignation at Peg, that she should have given him away. It did not help matters much that Peg insisted during the lunch hour of reiterating her various thrilling experiences, her emotions of fear and despair and relief and joy, her admiration of Paul’s heroic courage, her gratitude, and all the rest of it. Paul was grateful, however, that apparently up to this point Peg had so far observed the decencies as to make no reference to his lamentable “fall from grace.” Immediately after lunch, with the timely assistance of Aunt Augusta, who seized upon Peg and promptly put her to bed, Paul was able to effect his escape from the household, and betook himself to the solitude of Pine Croft Ranch. There, under the pines on the hill at the back of the bungalow, which had become to him a holy place, a very temple of God, where he was wont to hold his secret communions with his own spirit and with the world unseen, he entered upon the soul conflict which had to be fought out before he could sleep in peace.