They were alone together on the gravel walk, Miss Skipwith having retired to make tea in her dingy parlour. It had dawned upon her that this visitor of Miss Tempest's was no common friend; and she had judiciously left the lovers together. "Poor misguided child!" she murmured to herself pityingly; "just as she was developing a vocation for serious things! But perhaps if is all for the best. I doubt if she would ever have had breadth of mind to grapple with the great problems of natural religion." "Isn't it dreadful?" said Vixen, walking up and down with the telegram in her hand. "I shall have to endure hours of suspense before I can know how my poor mother is. There is no boat till to-morrow morning. It's no use talking, Rorie." Mr. Vawdrey was following her up and down the walk affectionately, but not saying a word. "I feel convinced that mamma must be seriously ill; I should not be sent for unless it were so. In all her letters there has not been a word about my going home. I was not wanted." "But, dearest love, you know that your mother is apt to think seriously of trifles." "Rorie, you told me an hour ago that she was looking ill when last you saw her." Roderick looked at his watch. "There is one thing I might do," he said, musingly. "Has Miss Skipwith a horse and trap?" "Not the least in the world." "That's a pity; it would have saved time. I'll get down to St. Helier's somehow, telegraph to Captain Winstanley to inquire the exact state of your mother's health, and not come back till I bring you his answer." "Oh, Rorie, that would be good of you!" exclaimed Vixen. "But it seems too cruel to send you away like that; you have been travelling so long. You have had nothing to eat. You must be dreadfully tired." "Tired! Have I not been with you? There are some people whose presence makes one unconscious of humanity's weaknesses. No, darling, I am neither tired nor hungry; I am only ineffably happy. I'll go down and set the wires in motion; and then I'll find out all about the steamer for to-morrow morning, and we will go back to Hampshire together." And again the rejoicing lover quoted the Laureate: "And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold; And far across the hills they went, In that new world which is the old." Rorie had to walk all the way to St. Helier's. He dispatched an urgent message to Captain Winstanley, and then dined temperately at a French restaurant not far from the quay, where the _bon vivants_ of Jersey are wont to assemble nightly. When he had dined he walked about the harbour, looking at the ships, and watching the lights beginning to glimmer from the barrack-windows, and the straggling street along the shore, and the far-off beacons shining out, as the rosy sunset darkened to purple night. He went to the office two or three times before the return message had come; but at last it was handed to him, and he read it by the office-lamp: