But, as she reflected further, it did not seem so likely. For supposing he had been forced to delay his journey for a whole week, and had exchanged his berth on the _St. Louis_ for one on the boat of the same line sailing a week later, that is, on the 28th, there would still have been plenty of time for him to have arrived in England and to have seen her, as he would have reached Southampton by the 3rd of August, or by the 4th at latest. And it was now the 9th! As Kitty tried to puzzle the matter out, her fears, vague, but none the less distressing, were greatly increased, and she began to suspect that something, she knew not what, had happened to her father. Gilbert, now as anxious as Kitty was, was at Surbiton in the evening to hear what news she had received from Vancouver, and he was as much bewildered as she by the cablegram from Wallace, Morris Thornton's agent. All he could do was to remind her, as he had done before, that the delay in her father's coming, as well as his silence, might all be part of his scheme to "surprise" her. But Kitty replied that this made her father out as unkind in the extreme; she was sure he would never willingly put such a strain upon her affection. "I can't make it out at all," she said, wrinkling her pretty brows. "It seems very singular that he does not write." Then an idea struck her. It was that there might be, on a careful re-reading of the letter she had received from her father, in which he had said he was returning to England, some words which would afford a clue. "I shall look at his letter again," she said to Gilbert, and went up to her room to fetch it. "He writes," remarked the girl, when she had brought it down, "quite positively 'I will come in a few days after you receive this.' 'A few days,' he says. If he had sailed on the 21st of July and came here to-morrow--why, it would be nearly three weeks, and you can't call that a few days." "No," assented Gilbert; "but, Kitty, it's hardly three weeks. If he had sailed on the 21st he would have been here about the 28th or the 29th. You see what's left is more like ten days than three weeks. But what is the date of your father's letter?" "July 11th." "And when did you get it, dear?" "Oh, Gilbert, don't you know, don't you remember?" asked Kitty, with some reproach in her voice. "Surely, you cannot have forgotten that I got it on the very day you told me that you loved me!" "Ah, sweetheart," quickly replied Gilbert, taking her hand and pressing it tenderly, "I've been so happy that I have lost all count of time--I forget everything but you, my darling!" "A pretty speech," exclaimed Kitty, smiling upon him while her hand returned the pressure of his, "and I suppose I must forgive you, Gilbert. But about this letter of father's. Well, it came just sixteen days ago to-day. Now, sixteen days are not exactly a few days, are they?" she asked, sticking to her point. "It was on the 24th that his letter came," said Gilbert.