For three or four days I could get no word with Mary. I could not now come and go as I had been able to do in the days when we were still "the children." I could not work, I could not rest, I prowled as near as I could to Burnmore House hoping for some glimpse of her, waiting for the moment when I could decently present myself again at the house.  
When at last I called, Justin had gone and things had some flavor of the ancient time. Lady Ladislaw received me with an airy , all the careful responsibility of her party manner thrown aside. "And how goes Cambridge?" she sang, sailing through the great saloon towards me, and I thought that for the occasion Cambridge instead of would serve well. "You'll find them all at tennis," said Lady Ladislaw, and waved me on to the gardens. There I found all four of them and had to wait until their set was finished.
 
"Mary," I said at the first chance, "are we never to talk again?"
 
"It's all different," she said.
 
"I am dying to talk to you—as we used to talk."
 
"And I—Stevenage. But—— You see?"
 
"Next time I come," I said, "I shall bring you a letter. There is so much——"
 
"No," she said. "Can't you get up in the morning? Very early—five or s............