“About--what time is it, Charley?” “I dunno. Just when old Mr. Musk was going.” “’S he gone?” “Went in a four-wheeler--gave Tom a bob for carrying his birds.” “Goo’law! Old Musk gone ... in a cab ... I bet he’s an old miser.” “I bet he is too ... very close ... he’s not gone away for good.” “Where’s he gone?” Whitey, sipping his coffee, edged nearer the speaker. “Gone to a place in Kent--Maidstone ... where the hopping is.” (Oh, indiscreet Peter! bursting with importance!) “No, it ain’t Maidstone--it’s a place called Were.” “Well, that’s Maidstone--anyway, Maidstone’s the station.” Whitey finished his coffee and went home to bed. CHAPTER XVIII WHITEY’S WAY Amber found the road from Maidstone to Rochester a most pleasant way. There are those who in the early spring might have complained that it erred on the side of monotony, that tiresome winding, climbing and dipping road; although bleak enough with the gaunt Kentish rag rising untidily to a modest eminence on the one hand, and the valley of the Medway showing dimly through a white haze on the other. Yet Amber found the walk invigorating and desirable, and neither grey skies above, nor the keen gusty wind that drove from the sea seeking one’s very marrow, chilled or depressed him. “We might have driven out,” said the girl who was with him--her presence explained his oblivion to all else. “I’m so afraid that the weather----” “Produces complications in the poor African traveller,” said he, and laughed. “Peter gave me a long lecture on the same subject. It appears that a hero of his was subject to brain fever as a result of a sudden change of climate--though that can’t be true, for heroes are not affected by the weather.” “I like your Peter,” she said, after a pause. “He’s a rum bird,” confessed Amber. “Father likes him too,” she went on, and sighed. “Do you think father will ever be well again?” Amber was a long time framing a reply, so long that she stopped. “I wish you would tell me,” she said quietly. “I want to tell you,” he said. “I was trying to put my most private thoughts into words. Yes,” he considered again. “Yes, I believe he will get better.” “He is not----” She did not finish the sentence. “No, he is not--mad, as madness is understood. He has an obsession--he is so full of one happening that everything has stood still since then.” “He has lost his memory--and yet he remembers me and the River of Stars.” They walked on in silence, both too much engaged in their own thoughts for conversation. The problem of Sutton the explorer was one which had occupied no small amount of their waking thoughts. The house Cynthia had taken stood back from the road. It had originally been a farm-house, but a succession of leisured tenants had converted it into a comfortable little mansion, and with its four acres of wooded grounds it made an admirable retreat.