an't stand any more of
this. Do you see that motto on the sun-dial: 'I bide my time'--I've read
it and read it, and I've said it over to myself and waited and hoped to
move you. Now I can't wait any more."

He kissed her, dropped her hand, and turning from her went out through
the iron gate and down the drive. For a moment Jan stood by the sun-dial
as though she, too, were stone.

Then blindly she went up the steps into the empty nursery and sat down
on an old sofa far back in the room. She leaned face-downward against
the cushions, and great, tearing sobs broke from her.

Peter was gone. He would never come back. She had driven him from her.
And having done so she realised that he was the one person in the world
she could not possibly do without.

Tony's own hen had laid an egg. Carrying it very carefully in a
cabbage-leaf, he went, accompanied by the faithful William, to show it
to Auntie Jan, and was just in time to see Peter going down the drive.

He went through the wrens' garden and in by the window. For a moment he
didn't see his aunt; and was turning to go again when a strange sound
arrested him, and he saw her all huddled up at the head of the sofa,
with hidden face and heaving shoulders.

He laid his egg on the table and went and pulled at her arm.

"What is the matter?" he asked anxiously. "And why has Peter gone?"

Jan raised her head; pride and shame and self-consciousness were dead in
her: "He's gone," she sobbed. "He won't come back, and I shall never be
happy any more," and down went her head again on her locked arms.

Tony did not attempt to console her. He ran from the room, and Jan felt
that this was only an added pang of abandonment.

Down the drive ran Tony, with William galumphing beside him. But William
was not happy, and squealed softly from time to time. He felt it unkind
to leave a poor lady crying like that, and yet was constrained to go
with Tony because Meg had left him in William's charge.

Tony turned out of the gate and into the road.

Far away in the distance was a man's figure striding along with
incredible swiftness. Tony started to run all he knew. Now, seldom as
William barked, he barked when people ran, and William's bark was so
deep and sonorous and distinctive that it caused the swiftly striding
man to turn his head. He turned his body, too, and came back to meet
Tony and William.

Tony was puffed and almost breathless, but he managed to jerk out: "You
must go back;