“Certainly we do not,” said Mr. Fothersley, deeply pained but associating himself with her from long habit. “Most certainly not! I can assure you my conscience is quite clear. Really, you are allowing your imagination to run away with you. We have always done our best to stop Nita creating these most awkward situations.” “Yes, of course we have,” said Lady Condor soothingly. “I did not mean that. But now where is Condor? Oh, he has walked home across the fields. So good for his figure! I wish I could do the same for mine. Yes, Nita has been quite nice to Miss Seer, and now Violet is seeing her off.” “I am motoring back to town to-night,” Violet Riversley was saying as she shut the door of Ruth Seer’s little two-seater car, “or I would like to come over to Thorpe. How is it?” “Just lovely,” said Ruth, smiling. “Be sure and come whenever you can.” She had taken off the brakes, put out the clutch and got into gear before Violet answered. Then she laid her hand, as with a sudden impulse, on the side of the car. “If one day I should—quite suddenly—wire to you and ask you to have me to stay—would you?” she asked. “Why yes, of course,” said Ruth. “You might have other visitors—or be away.” “No, I shall not have other visitors, and I shall not be away.” The conveyances of other guests had begun to crowd the drive, and Ruth had to give all her attention to getting her car out of a gate built before the day of cars. It was only when she was running clear, down the long slope from Fairbridge, that she remembered the curious and absolute certainty with which she had answered Violet Riversley’s question. CHAPTER IX The clouds of a thunderstorm were looming slowly up as Ruth motored home, and soon after she got back a sudden deluge swept over Thorpe. In ten minutes the garden paths were running with water unable to get into the sun-baked ground and every hand on the farm was busy getting young things into shelter. “I said we should have rain soon,” announced Miss McCox, after the triumphant manner of weather prophets, as she brought in Bertram Aurelius, busy trying to catch the falling silver flood with both hands. “He has never seen rain before to remember. Think of it!” said Ruth. “And he isn’t a bit frightened. Where are the other children?” “A little wet, more or less, will do _them_ no harm,” replied Miss McCox. “They’re more in the river than out of it, I’m thinking, bringing in mess and what not.” She handed Bertram Aurelius, protesting for once vigorously, through the kitchen window to his mother. “It’s the young chicken up in the top field I’m after,” she added.