Even when he was living for two days in the retirement of his cottage on the bank of the River Thames, Sir Creighton Severn was too busy a man to find time to join the little company who set out in his launch on the Sunday to pay the visit which his daughter had promised to the new proprietor of The Gables. He was not so utterly overwhelmed with business, however, but that he could look forward to two hours of solitude and slumber during their absence. He calculated, without the aid of logarithms, that the little company would be absent for two hours, and he proposed spending twenty minutes of this space in the enjoyment of his solitary cigar on the lawn and the remaining hour and forty minutes on one of the long cane chairs in a bower over-clustered by clematis, blue and white, and hidden away from the intrusive enquiries of impressionable flies and impossible visitors. He had no doubt that a visit to The Gables would have been very interesting--as a matter of fact he found most things in the world very interesting--but, as he remarked with a sigh that fully expressed his gratification at the thought, a busy man must make up his mind to forego a good many of those enjoyments which he most detested. The utmost enjoyment that he could allow himself in connection with this expedition was seeing the departure of the electric launch from the little staging at the water’s edge. But this enjoyment though only lasting a few minutes, was intense while it did last. His wife understood his feelings thoroughly. It was not often that she was able when up the river to withdraw her guests in so solid a body, leaving Sir Creighton to the solitude of his bower. Her guests pitied him. Some of the more sapient ones shook their heads and talked about burning the candle at both ends. She only smiled in response and said that it did not matter when the candle was an electric one. And so the launch made its noiseless way towards the lock at Hurley. The cottage known as The Weir was quite a small place--it could only accommodate six or seven visitors at once in addition to Sir Creighton’s family, and the usual maids which the visitors brought with them; it was just the snug little nook that would suit any one who did not want to keep more than two gardeners and half a dozen servants. The woods of Clievedon were behind it, and the waters of the weir at Marlow whispered a perpetual “Hush” in the ears of all the household. Sometimes, however, the sound was sufficiently loud to drown the silly bleatings of the phonographs on the excursion steamers on the other side.