The Coupee afforded Graeme another all-too-short span of delight, while Margaret's hand throbbed in his and she entrusted herself to his protection.

He took them home by the Windmill, and through the fields and hedge-gaps into the grounds of the Red House, and in his heart's eye saw Margaret standing once more in the opening of the tall hedge with the morning glory all about her--just as he would remember her all his life.

"Time?" demanded Miss Penny, as they pa.s.sed along the verandah.

"Half-past seven."

"Then you are half an hour late for your dinner. I propose that we ask Mrs. Carre to serve us all together to-night," said Miss Penny, "or we may all fare the worse."

"I shall be delighted," began Graeme exuberantly, "unless--" and he snapped a glance at Miss Brandt.

"We shall be glad if you will join us," she said quickly.

"I will be there in two minutes," he said, and sped up the Red House stairs to make ready.

"I hope to goodness he won't," said Miss Penny, as they pa.s.sed through the hedge. "Now don't you say a word to me, Margaret Brandt. It was you invited him"

"Oh!"

"'We shall be glad if you will join us.' If that isn't an invitation I'd like to know what it is. And I heard you say it with my own two ears,--moi qui vous parle, as we say here."

"You know perfectly well that I could not possibly do anything else, Hennie. I believe you just did it on purpose. I don't know what's come over you."

"John Graeme. I like him. And after all he'd done for us--that Coupee, and Venus's Bath, and the Souffleur, and he like to lose his dinner over it all! What could a kind motherly person like me do but suggest--simply suggest, in the vaguest manner possible--"

"Yes?--" as she stopped in a challenging way.

"I merely threw out the suggestion, I say, in the vaguest possible way, that as we were nearly dying of hunger he should allow us to ask Mrs. Carre to let us have our dinner half an hour earlier than usual--"

"Oh!"

"And then you struck in, in your usual lordly fashion, and begged him to join us. And I'm bound to say he took it very well, not to say jumped at it."

"Hennie, you're a--"

"Yes, I know. And if I live I'll be a be-a, and perhaps more besides,"--with a cryptic nod.

"Now, what do you mean by that?"

"Wait patiently, my child, and you'll see."

"I believe the Sark air is affecting your--whatever you've got inside that giddy head of yours."

"Of course it is. That's what I came for, and to keep you out of mischief, you infantile law-breaker."

XI

Graeme's two minutes were each set with considerably more than the regulation sixty seconds--diamond seconds of glowing antic.i.p.ation, every one of them. And, to his credit, be it recorded that he allotted several of them to the invocation of most fervent blessings on Miss Penny, who, at the moment, was vigorously disclaiming any pretension thereto.

But, quite soon enough for his hosts, as he considered them,--his guests, according to Miss Penny,--he appeared at the cottage, bodily and mentally prepared for the feast, and showing both in manner and attire due sense of the honour conferred upon him.

It was a festive, and for one of them at all events, a never-to-be-forgotten meal. The strong Sark air had got into all their heads, and whatever prudish notions might have been working in Margaret, she had bidden them to heel and took her pleasure as it came.

Her mood, however, for the moment was receptive rather than expressive. Miss Penny and Graeme still did most of the talking, and Margaret sat and listened and laughed, not a little astonished at finding herself in that galley.

"What is the penalty for aiding and abetting a criminal in an evasion of the law, Mr. Graeme?" chirped Miss Penny one time, and took Margaret's energetic below-table expostulation without a wince.

"It would depend, I should say, on the particular dye of criminal.

What has your friend been up to, Miss Penny? Is he a particularly black specimen?"

"In the first place he's a she, and in the next place her complexion has a decided tendency towards blonde. As to dye--I am in a position to state on oath that she does not."

For a moment he was mystified, then his eye fell on Margaret's face, full of glorious confusion at this base betrayal by her bosom friend.

"The Sark air does get into people's heads like that at times," he said diplomatically. "It's just in the first few days. But you soon get used to it. I felt just the same myself--losing faith in things and thinking ill of my friends, and so on. You'll be quite all right in a day or two, Miss Penny,"--with a touch of sympathetic commiseration in his voice.

"Oh, I'm quite all right now," said Miss Penny enjoyably. "I thought it only right and proper to let you know where you stand. At the present moment you are as likely as not aiding and abetting a breaker of the British laws and her accomplice. You may become involved in serious complications, you see."

"If that means that I can be of any service in the matter I shall be only too delighted,--if you will not look upon me as an intruder." He spoke to Miss Penny but looked at Margaret.

"Ah-ha! Qualms of conscience----"

"Hennie is a little raised, Mr. Graeme," broke in Margaret. "Please excuse her. A good night's rest will make her all right."

"Never felt better in my life," sparkled Miss Penny. "But seriously, Mr. Graeme, it is only right you should understand, for we don't quite know where we are ourselves, and I'm going to tell you even though Margaret kicks all the skin off my leg in the process. In a word,--we've bolted."

"Bolted?" he echoed, all aglow with hopeful interest.

"Yes--from Mr. Pixley and all his works. And as he had been threatening to make us a Ward of Court, you see--well, there you are, don't you know."

"I see," he said, and there was a new light in his eyes as he looked at Margaret, and his soul danced within him again as David's before the Ark.

"For reasons which seemed adequate to myself, Mr. Graeme,"--began Margaret, in more sober explanation.

"They were, they were. I am sure of it," sang his heart. And his brain asked eagerly, "Had Charles Svendt anything to do with it, I wonder?"

"--I thought it well to remove myself from the care of my guardian Mr. Pixley----"

"Splendid girl! Splendid girl!" sang his heart.

"--And as I have still some of my time to serve----"

"How long, O Lord, how long?" chaunted his heart, with no sense of impropriety, for it was sounding paeans of joyful hope.

"--You see----" said Margaret.

"I see."