heir eyes met with no shields before them; and she was wounded, for
he just caught her voice as he went down the steps, "Oh, Marko, do write
to me!"

The Ri--te O voice of the Hopscotch. "Come on, Sabre, my boy! Come on!
Come on!"

He got into the cab. Major Millet had taken the seat next Mabel. "Ri--te
_O_, Cabby!" the Hopscotch hailed.

As the horse turned with the staggering motions proper to its burden of
years and infirmity, Mabel inquired, "What was Lady Tybar talking to you
about all that time?"

He said, "Oh, just saying good-by."

But he was thinking, "That's a fourth question: Why did you say, 'Oh,
Marko, do write to me'? Or was that the answer to the other questions,
although I never asked them?"

II

He did not write to her. But in October a ridiculous incident impelled
afresh the urgent desire to ask her the questions: an incident no less
absurd than the fact that in October Low Jinks knocked her knee.

Mabel spent two months of the summer on visits to friends. In August
she was with her own people on their annual holiday at Buxton. There
Sabre, who had a fortnight, joined her. It happened to be the fortnight
of the croquet tournament, and it happened that Major Millet was also in
Buxton. Curiously enough he had also been at Bournemouth, whence Mabel
had just come from cousins, and they had played much croquet there
together. It was projected as great fun to enter the Buxton tournament
in partnership, and Sabre did not see a great deal of Mabel.

It was late September when they resumed life together at Penny Green. In
their absence the light railway linking up the Garden Home with
Tidborough and Chovensbury had been opened with enormous excitement and
celebration; and Mabel became at once immersed in paying calls and
joining the activities of the new and intensely active community.

Then Low Jinks knocked her knee.

The knee swelled and for two days Low Jinks had to keep her leg on a
chair. It greatly annoyed Mabel to see Low Jinks sitting in the kitchen
with her leg "stuck out on a chair." She told Sabre it was extraordinary
how "that class of person" always got in such a horrible state from the
most ridiculous trifles. "I suppose I knock my knee a dozen times a
week, but my knee doesn't swell up and get disgusting. You're always
reading in the paper about common people getting stung by wasps, or
getting a scratch from a nail, and dying the next day. They must be in a
horrible state. It alw