almost to themselves,
except for a gardener or two. All around the Square were shuttered and
silent houses. It was the most torrid of early August days, and
presently the heat drove them to a sheltered seat beneath a tree. In the
mist of heat around them the bedding-plants, the scarlet geraniums, the
lobelia and beet, made a vivid glare. Only in the forest trees, too
dense for the dust to penetrate, were there shadow and relief.

They were talking of Nelly.

"She will be all right now," Mary said. "She has come out of the
darkness. Even if she has his death to bear I think she will bear it.
She reproaches herself for the pain she has caused her father."

"Poor Uncle Denis! He lives in terror about Nelly. She is all he has had
since her mother died."

"I think he may rest easy now. Nelly is not going to die--not even of
grief. Now that she is better, Sir Robin, why don't you go away? I know
your yacht is waiting for you, and you have got the London look; you
want change."

"I shan't go till there is news one way or another."

"There ought to be news soon. It is hard on you waiting from day to
day."

"I don't feel it hard. Perhaps if the good news came I might induce them
to come away with me on the yacht. It would be the best thing in the
world for them. For the matter of that, why don't you go away? You also
have the London look."

"Oh, I shall go gladly when I may. I am really longing to be off. Do you
know what I shall hear when I go over there?--a sound I am longing for."

"What?"

"The rain. I close my eyes now and fancy I hear it pattering on the
leaves. Oh, the music of it! One is never long without it at home. We've
had six weeks without rain here. Can't you imagine the soft, delicious
downpour of it? The music of the rain--my ears hunger for it."

"Oh, now indeed I see that it is time you went. You will probably have
enough of the rain."

He spoke gloomily, and she laughed.

"It will probably rain all the time I am there. And I shall be able to
forgive it because of its first delicious moments."

"What are you going to do?" He asked the question almost roughly.

"I am going to be with my father, in a mean, little two-storied house of
six rooms. At least, it is mean outwardly; but no house could be mean
inside where he lived and spread his light. He will have to be at his
work every day till he gets his fortnight's holiday in September. If I
get away in, say, a fortnight's time, I shall help my