"I can't," she said, and her voice--there was hurry in it, and indecision, but the ice had gone. "You must come at once for that ladder. It's getting more dangerous every moment. If any one saw you here there'd be an awful row." "For you?" "Yes, for me. Come on." He followed her along the wall under the chestnuts. There was no more spoken words till they came to the ladder. Then, "Right," he said. "Thank you. Good-by." And set the ladder against the wall. "Good-by," said she. "I'll hand the aeroplane up to you?" "Stand clear," he said, half-way up the ladder. "I'll give it a sideways tip from the top--it'll fall into its place. It's too heavy for you to lift. Good-by." He had reached the top of the wall. She stood below, looking up at him. "There won't be any row now?" "No. It's quite safe." "Then have you nothing to say?" "Nothing. Yes, I have. I will come to-morrow. You'll misunderstand everything if I don't." "Thank you," he said. She came up the ladder, two steps, then handed him his toy. Then the ladder fell with a soft thud among the moss and earth and dead leaves; his head showed a moment above the wall, then vanished. He went thoughtfully through the dewy grass, along the road, and back to his inn. Tommy met him by the horse-trough. "You been flying it?" he asked, breathlessly. "Yes. She went like a bird." "How far did she go?" Tommy asked. "I don't quite know," said Edward, quite truly, "how far she went. I shall know better to-morrow." IV THE SOUTH DOWNS THE day was long. Though the aeroplane flew to admiration, though Tommy adored him and all his works, though the skylarks sang, and the downs were drenched in sunshine, Edward Basingstoke admitted to himself, before half its length was known to him, that the day was long. He climbed the cliff above Cuckmere and sat in the sunshine there, where the gulls flashed white wings and screamed like babies; he watched the tide, milk-white with the fallen chalk of England's edge, come sousing in over the brown, seaweed-covered rocks; he felt the crisp warmth of the dry turf under his hand, and smelt the sweet smell of the thyme and the furze and the sea, and it was all good. But it was long. And, for the first time in his life, being alone was lonely. And for the second time since the day when Charles, bounding at him from among the clean straw of an Oxford stable, had bounded into his affections, he had left that strenuous dog behind.