balance of the sum I gave you, and I
hope it will have been enough to pay all the debts at which you
hinted in your last letter. I do not think it would be fair to you
to hamper you with any more money. In fact, I trust you have
already made up your mind not to ask for any.

You'll be sorry to hear that Wilkinson has fallen ill and must go
abroad at once. This makes it imperative for me to know at once if
you are coming to help me next September. If you are, I'm afraid I
must ask you to come here immediately and take Wilkinson's place
this term. I'm sorry to drag you away from your country estate,
but I cannot go to the bother of getting a temporary master and
then begin again with you in September. It unsettles the boys too
much. So if you want to come in September, you must come now. You
will only miss a month of your house and I hope that during the
seven weeks of the summer holidays you will be able to transfer
yourself comfortably and abandon it for ever.

Take a day to think over my proposal and telegraph your answer
to-morrow.

Your affectionate father,
JOHN HAZLEWOOD.

It seemed fateful, the arrival of this letter on top of the doubts of
last night. A day was not long in which to make up his mind. And yet,
after all, a moment was enough. He ought to go; he ought to telegraph
immediately before he could vacillate; he must not see Pauline first; he
ought to accept this offer. Farewell, fame!

Guy opened the front door and walked into Birdwood come with a note from
the Rectory.

"Miss Pauline took me away from my work to give you this most particular
and important and wait for the answer," said the gardener.

Guy asked him to step inside and see Miss Peasey while he went up-stairs
to write the reply.

"Miss Peasey doesn't think much of your variety, Birdwood. She says the
garden is entirely blue."

"What, all those dellyphiniums the Rector raised with his own hand and
she don't like blue!"

Birdwood shook his head to express another defeat at the hands of
incomprehensible woman. A moment later, as Guy went up to his room with
Pauline's note, he heard him bellow in the kitchen:

"What's this I hear, mum, about the garden being too blue?"

Then Guy closed the door of the library and shut out everything but the
sound of the stream.

MY DARLING,--I've got such exciting news. Mr. Delamere who's a
friend o