A white-capped servant came running across Lombard Street from Mr. Carmagee’s, and hailed Murchison’s chauffeur, who had just swung the car to the edge of the footway outside the doctor’s house. The white streamers of the maid’s apron were fluttering jauntily in the wind. Some weeks ago the chauffeur had discovered the fact that the lawyer’s parlor-maid had an attractive simper.

“Good-day, miss; can I oblige a lady?”

“Mr. Carmagee wants to know whether the doctor and the missus are going to Marley Down this afternoon?”

“Yes, straight away. I’m waiting for ’em to finish tea.”

“You’re to step over to Mr. Carmagee’s garden door at once.”

“Thank you. And who’s to mind the car?”

“It won’t catch cold,” and the maid showed her dimples for a bachelor’s benefit.

The chauffeur crossed the road with her, and was met at the green gate in the garden by Mr. Porteus himself. A hamper lay on the gravel-path at the lawyer’s feet, with straw protruding from under the lid. Mr. Carmagee twinkled, and gave the man a shilling.

“Stow this in the car, Gage; you’ve room, I suppose.”

“Plenty, sir.”

“Don’t say anything about it to your master. Just a little surprise, a good liver-tonic, Gage—see?”

The man grinned, touched his cap, and, picking up the hamper, recrossed the street. He packed Mr. Carmagee’s offering away with the light luggage at the back of the car, and after grimacing at the maid, who was still watching him from the garden door, busied himself with polishing the lamps.

“Good-bye, darling, good-bye. Be a good boy, Jack, and do what Mary tells you.”

Catherine was bending over her two children in the hall, a light dust cloak round her, a white veil over her summer hat. Miss Gwen, looking a little pensive and inclined to weep, hugged her mother with a pair of very chubby arms. Master Jack was more militant, and inclined to insist upon his rights.

“Oh, I say, mother, I don’t call it fair!”

“You shall come next week, dear.”

“Gage says he’ll teach me to drive. I’ll come next week. You’ve promised now—you know.”

Catherine kissed him, and laughed like a young bride when her husband came up and lifted the youngster off his feet.

“Who wants to boss creation, eh?”

Master John clapped his heels together.

“It’s no fun with old Mary, father.”

“You must learn to be a philosopher, my man.”

“I’m going to buy a busting big pea-shooter at Smith’s,” quoth the heckler, meaningly, as he regained the floor.

Murchison caught his daughter up in his strong arms.

“Good-bye, my Gwen—”

“Dood-bye, father.”

“No tears, little sunlight. What is it, a secret?—well.”

The child was whispering in his ear. Murchison listened, fatherly amusement shining in his eyes.

“I put ’em in muvver’s bag.”

“All right. I’ll see to it.”

“They’re boofy; I tried one, jus’ one.”

Murchison laughed, and hugged the child.

“What a wicked fay it is! You shall come with us next time. We’ll have tea in the woods, stir up ant-heaps, and play at Swiss Family Robinson. Good-bye,” and he carried her with him to the door to take her child’s kiss as the sunlight touched her hair.

Summer on Marley Down was a pageant such as painter’s love. Heather everywhere, lagoons of purple amid the rich green reefs of the rising bracken. Scotch firs towering into mystery against the blue, roofing magic aisles where shadows played on grass like velvet, bluff banks and forest valleys, heather and whortleberry tangling the ground. In the marshy hollows of the down the moss was as some rich carpet from the Orient, gold, green, and bronze. Asphodel grew in these rank green hollows, with the red whorls of the sundew, and the swinging sedge. Everywhere a broad, breezy sky, brilliant with color above a brilliant world.

The palings of the cottage-garden glimmered white between the sombre cypresses, and the dark swell of the fir-wood topped the red of the tiled roof. This nook in Arcady had the charm of a surprise for Murchison, for Catherine had made him promise that he would leave the stewardship to her. She had spent many an hour over at Marley Down, and her year’s allowance from her mother had gone in art fabrics, carpets, and old furniture. Catherine had taken Gwen with her more than once, having sworn the child to secrecy on these solemn motherly trifles, and Gwen had hidden her bubbling enthusiasm even from her father.

“Here we are! Is it not a corner of romance?”

“The place looks lovely, dear.”

“Wait!” and she seemed happily mysterious.

“I can guess your magic. Carry the luggage in, Gage; Dr. Inglis may want you for an hour or two at home.”

He gave his hand to Catherine, and together they passed into the little garden. Murchison looked about him like a man who had put the grim world out of his heart. The peacefulness of the place seemed part of the woodland and the sky. Purple clematis was in bloom, with a white rose over the porch. The beds below the windows were fragrant with sweet herbs, lavender and thyme, rosemary and sage. A crimson rambler blazed up nearly to the overhanging eaves, and there were rows of lilies, milk white, beneath the cypress-trees.

Within, a woman’s careful and happy tenderness welcomed him everywhere. A dozen nooks and corners betrayed where Catherine’s hands had been at work. Flowered curtains at the casements; simple pottery, richly colored, on the window shelves; his favorite books; a great lounge-chair for him before an open window. The place was a dream cottage, brown beamed, brown floored, its walls tinted with delicate greens and reds, old panelling beside the red brick hearths, beauty and quaintness everywhere, flowers in the garden, flowers in the quiet room.

“What a haven of rest!”

He stood in the little drawing-room, looking about him with an expression of deep contentment on his face. Catherine knew that his heart thanked her, and that her simple idyl was complete.

He turned and put his arm across her shoulders.

“You have worked hard, dear.”

“Have I?” and she laughed and colored.

“It is all good. I am wondering whether I deserve so much.”

Her happy silence denied the thought.

“Your spirit is in the place, Kate.”

“My heart, perhaps,” she answered.

He bent and kissed her, and drew from her with smiling mouth as they heard the man Gage come plodding down the stairs.

He stopped at the door and touched his cap.

“All in, sir. I’ve put your bag in what the old lady told me was your dressing-room.”

“Thanks, Gage.”

“Any message to Dr. Inglis, sir?”

“Oh, ask him to call at Mrs. Purvis’s in Carter Street; I forgot to put her on the list.”

“Right, sir,” and they heard the clash of the garden gate; then the panting of the car, and the plaintive wail of the “oil horse” as it got in gear.

“Out—old world,” and Murchison swept his wife towards the piano; “give me a song, Kate.”

“Now?” and her eyes were radiant.

“Yes, I shall remember the first song you sing to me in this dear place.”

Catherine had gone to her room, when Murchison stumbled on the hamper that Porteus Carmagee had given the man Gage to carry in the car. The fellow had set it down in the little hall, between an oak settle and a table that held a bowl of roses by the door. Murchison imagined that his wife had been investing in china or antiques. A letter was tucked under the cord, and, looking closer, he recognized his own name and the lawyer’s scrawl, the “q............