‘He used not,’ says poor Susan. Alas! this assertion is not quite true. ‘And even if he did, you’—to the horrified Jacky—‘should not have told it. You, Jacky’—trembling with shame—‘I wouldn’t have believed it of you! It was hateful of you! You’—with a withering glance around—‘are all hateful, and—and—’ She chokes, breaks down, and runs with swift-flying feet into the small shrubbery beyond, where lies a little summer-house in which she can hide herself. CHAPTER XXIII. ‘Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow.’ An embarrassed silence falls upon the group she leaves behind her. It had not occurred to them that she would care so much. They had often chaffed her before. It must—it must have been Mr. Crosby’s being there that had put her out like that. To tell the truth, they are all penitent—Betty perhaps more than the others. But even her remorse sinks into insignificance before Jacky’s. His takes the nature of a wrathful attack upon the others, and ends in a storm of tears. ‘You’ve been teasing her, you know you have—and she’s mad with me now. And I didn’t mean anything. And she’s crying, I know she is. And you’re all beasts—beasts!’ It is at this point that his own tears break forth, and, like Susan, he flees from them—but, unlike Susan, howling. ‘I didn’t know; I didn’t think she’d care,’ says Betty, in a frightened tone. ‘We often teased her before;’ and she might have said more, but an attack of sneezing lays her low. ‘But before a stranger!’ says Carew anxiously. ‘I am afraid, Mr. Crosby, it is because you were here.’ ‘It isn’t a bit like Susan to care like that,’ says Dom. ‘I say’—contritely—‘I’m awfully sorry. I wonder where she is, Betty.’ ‘In the summer-house. She always goes there when she’s vexed or worried.’ ‘Why don’t you go to her, then?’ ‘I can’t. I’ve a cold. I’ll wait awhile,’ says Betty, holding back. ‘I think, as it has been my fault,’ says Crosby quietly, ‘that I had better be the one to apologize. Where is this summer-house of which you speak?’ ‘Right round there,’ says Betty eagerly, pointing to the corner of the house. ‘Just behind the rose-trees,’ says Dom, giving him a friendly push forward. ‘You can’t miss her,’ says Carew, who is dying to give him an encouraging clap on the shoulder. They are all evidently very anxious to get the task of ‘making it up’ with Susan on to any other shoulders than their own. ‘Well, I think I’ll take a little hostage with me, or shall we say a peace-offering?’ says Crosby, catching up Bonnie, and starting with him for Susan’s hiding-place. ‘Any way, I’ve got a pioneer,’ says he. ‘He’ll show me the way.’ The way is short and very sweet. Along a gravelled pathway, between trees of glowing roses, to where in the distance is a tiny house, made evidently by young, untutored hands, out of young and very unseasoned timber.