Delia interrupted hurriedly, after the manner of young women who ardently long to hear a declaration of love, yet take fright at the first symptom of its approach. "Anyway," she said decisively, "you have _got_ to come to the cottage over Whitsuntide. I insist upon it, so it's no use trying to escape. Three whole days in the country will steady your nerves. It's not at all _comme il faut_ for a director to have jumpy nerves. If I were a shareholder I'd sell out at once. You will travel down with us on Friday afternoon, and stay as long as you can the next week. Understand?" Lessing thankfully accepted the invitation, which was duly confirmed by Mrs Gordon upon her return to the sitting-room, and a week later he arrived at the week-end cottage, after a safe and comfortable journey in the company of his cheerful friends. During that week only one disquieting incident had happened, but that was ominous enough. A typed envelope lying among other letters on the breakfast-table was left carelessly until the others had been read and digested, and then torn open with the scant courtesy shown to notes of the circular type; but the folded slip bore no printed words, and as Lessing jerked it apart there floated downward on to the carpet a thin powdery stream, at sight of which the blood mounted in his face. Moistening one finger, he bent and applied the tip to the scattered grains, then lifted it to his lips. Salt! There was no mistaking the sharp clean savour, and on a corner of the paper he beheld the rough amateur drawing of a knife. The Brethren had sent him a reminder that they were still waiting for their revenge! That year Whitsuntide fell in a spell of warm and settled weather, and a more charming retreat than the Gordons' week-end cottage it would be difficult to find. The house was a type of simple comfort, the garden a delicious riot of colour and fragrance. None of the Gordons knew anything about the science of gardening, but they considered it "fun" to attend to their own garden, sent wholesale orders to advertising seedsmen, and begged shamelessly from gardening friends. The friends responded with sacks of mysterious-looking roots which the Gordons proceeded to plump indiscriminately into the first vacant space which came handy. Everything flourished, for the soil was new and rich, and the sun blazed upon it from morning till night; and the result was as delightful as it was unorthodox.