“Oh, no, no!” “Yes, really.” Lynette seized her hands. “You shan’t go. And, listen, there’s daddy!” Eve heard a deep voice singing in a soft monotone, the voice of one who hardly knew what he was singing. She stood rigid, face averted, Lynette still holding her hands and looking up intently into her face. “Miss Eve, aren’t you glad to see daddy?” “Why, yes.” A sudden silence fell. The man’s footsteps had paused on the edge of the wood. It was as though the life in both of them held its breath. Eve turned. She had to turn to face something that was inevitable. He was coming down the bank, his face in the sunlight, his eyes staring straight at her as though there were nothing else in the whole world for him to look at. Lynette’s voice broke the silence. “Daddy, she wanted to run away!” Eve bent over her. “Oh, child, child!” Her face hid itself for a moment in Lynette’s hair. She heard Canterton speaking, and something in his voice helped and steadied her. “Lynette has caught a fairy. She was always a very confident mortal. How are you—how are you?” He held out his hand, the big brown hand she remembered so well, and hers went into it. “Oh, a little older!” “But not too old for fairyland.” “May I never be too old for that.” * * * * * CHAPTER XL WHAT THEY SAID TO EACH OTHER They walked back through the larchwood with Lynette between them, keeping them apart, and yet holding a hand of each. “Miss Eve, where’ve you been all the winter? In London?” “Yes, in London.” “Do you like London better than Fernhill?” “No, not better. You see, there are no fairies in London.” “And did you paint pictures in London?” “Sometimes. But people are in too much of a hurry to look at pictures.” Miss Vance, as much the time-table as ever, met them where the white gate opened on to the heath garden. It was Lynette’s supper hour, an absurd hour, she called it, but she obeyed Miss Vance with great meekness, remembering that God still had to be kept without an excuse for being churlish. Eve and Miss Vance smiled reminiscently at each other. It was Miss Vance’s last term at Fernhill. “Good night, Miss Eve, dear. You will come again to-morrow?” “Yes; I will try to.” Canterton and Eve were left alone together, standing by the white gate that opened into the great gardens of Fernhill. Canterton had been silent, smilingly silent. Eve had dreaded being left alone with him, but now that she was alone with him, she found that the dread had passed. “Will you come and see the gardens?” “May I?” He opened the gate and she passed through.