t 12.30--the one I met
you by the other day?"

And again she said, "Yes."

He asked a little anxiously, "How about money, my precious pet? Are you
all right about money?"

For once her hard, selfish heart was touched and she answered truly: "You
need not bother about that."

And then there came a whispered, "Call me darling again, darling."

And she just breathed the word "Darling" into the receiver, making a
vague resolution as she did so that she would be, as far as would be
possible to her, a good wife to this simple-hearted, big baby of a man
who loved her so dearly.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Timmy went straight home. He entered the house by one of the back ways
and crept upstairs. Late that afternoon he had gratified Nanna by sharing
her high tea, and so he was not expected in the dining-room.

He felt intensely excited--what perhaps an older person would have called
uplifted. He wandered about the corridors of the roomy old house, his
hands clasped behind his back, thinking over and exulting in his great
achievement. He felt just a little bit uneasy as to the contents of the
letter Mrs. Crofton had said she would write explaining her departure. As
to certain things, Timmy Tosswill was still very much of a child. He
wondered why their enemy, for so he regarded her, should think it
necessary to write to anyone, except perhaps to Rosamund, who, after all,
had been her "pal." He was disagreeably aware that his mother would not
have approved of the method he had used to carry out what he knew to be
her ardent wish, and he wondered uncomfortably if Mrs. Crofton would
"give him away."

At last he opened the door of what was now his godfather's bedroom, and
walked across to the wide-open window. All at once there came over him a
feeling of wondering joy. He seemed to see, as in a glass darkly, three
figures pacing slowly along the path which bounded the wide lawn below.
They were Godfrey Radmore, Betty, and with them another whom he knew was
his dear brother, George. George, whom Timmy had never seen since the
day, which to the child now seemed so very long ago, when, rather to his
surprise, his eldest brother had lifted him up in his arms to kiss him
before going out to France at the end of his last leave. And as he gazed
down, tears began to run down his queer little face.

At last he turned away from the window, and as he went towards the door
he saw the outline of a paper pad on the writing table which in o