"I--I don't know," said Comethup, with a miserable pain beginning to gnaw at his heart. "I suspect--I know you're mistaken, as you were before, when you thought she met some one. But will you please go and tell her that I am here, and that I should like to see her?" Without another word Mrs. Dawson went out of the room, and he heard her quick feet ascending the stairs. Within a few minutes she returned, and stood just within the doorway of the room, looking at him. "She says you must forgive her, but she can not see you to-night. She will see you to-morrow. And she sends you her love." With that he had to be content, and he went away through the garden and through the streets back to the captain's cottage. All night long he lay wide awake, turning over the matter in his mind, seeing again Brian coming striding out of the garden, picturing in imagination an interview between him and the girl which ended in tears for her. But with the morning, just as he was thinking of getting up, came a little rattle of pebbles at his window; he scrambled out of bed and looked from behind the curtain. Below, in the garden, was 'Linda, smiling up at him, and with that smile all the troublous doubts and fears of the night were gone in a flash. He nodded to her, and scampered through his dressing and ran down to join her. She was in her most playful and bewitching mood; she caught both his hands and danced round him like a happy child, and dragged him into the house and kissed him before he had recovered breath to greet her. "There, see what a change the morning brings!" she cried, her eyes dancing. "Last night I hated all the world, and hated myself most of all; this morning the world is lovely, and I am lovely--_you_ might have said that, sir!--and I'm going to be good for evermore, and never, never give my dear boy the slightest cause for a heartache." Between laughter and tears she kissed him again, and clung to him. "But you never have given me cause for that," he said. "When I feel your arms about me and your lips on mine--well, nothing that has happened can matter at all; you seem to sweep everything else away. I was a little disappointed yesterday that I did not see you, but this more than makes up for it." "And you're quite sure that you forgive me--that this _does_ make up for it? Oh, my dear, I want you always to think of these best moments of mine, and to forget all the bad ones. See, with this bright morning I'll begin over again; I'll be so good, so tender, so devoted to you that you shall never have cause to think badly of me; all my moments shall be best moments from this hour; everything else shall be forgotten. Here's the captain coming; kiss me again."