"No, I have nothing to say. I daresay you are open and true, and have nothing to hide or disguise, not even about either of the men we met in the Long Walk on Sunday." He winced at this random shaft as if he had been stung, and she saw that it had gone home, and repented the next moment. The silence became more and more embarrassing. By good luck, however, their party suddenly appeared strolling towards them from the large garden. "Here are Uncle Robert and Katie, and all of them. Let us join them." She rose up, and he with her, and as they walked towards the rest, he said quickly in a low voice, "Will you forgive me if I have pained you? I was very selfish, and I am sorry." "Oh yes, we were both very foolish, but we won't do it again." "Here you are at last. We have been looking for you everywhere," said Miss Winter, as they came up. "I'm sure I don't know how we missed you. We came straight from the music tent to this seat, and have not moved. We knew you must come by sooner or later." "But it is quite out of the way. It is quite by chance that we came round here." "Isn't Uncle Robert tired, Katie?" said Tom; "he doesn't look well this afternoon." Katie instantly turned to her father, and Mr. Winter declared himself to be much fatigued. So they wished their hospitable entertainers good-bye, and Tom hurried off and got a wheel chair for his uncle, and walked by his side to their lodgings. The young ladies walked near the chair also, accompanied by one or two of their acquaintances; in fact they could not move without an escort. But Tom never once turned his head for a glance at what was going on, and talked steadily on to his uncle, that he might not catch a stray word of what the rest were saying. Despite of all this self-denial, however, he was quite aware somehow when he made his bow at the door that Mary had been very silent all the way home. Mr. Winter retired to his room to lie down, and his daughter and niece remained in the sitting-room. Mary sat down and untied her bonnet, but did not burst into her usual flood of comments on the events of the day. Miss Winter looked at her and said-- "You look tired, dear, and over-excited." "Oh yes, so I am. I've had such a quarrel with Tom." "A quarrel--you're not serious?" "Indeed I am, though. I quite hated him for five minutes at least." "But what did he do?" "Why, he taunted me with being too civil to everybody, and it made me so angry. He said I pretended to take an interest in ever so many things, just to please people, when I didn't really care about them. And it isn't true, now, Katie, is it?" "No, dear. He never could have said that. You must have misunderstood him."