She put up her hand, to push him gently away. He captured it, and held
it to his lips.

"Stop, Boy dear," she said. "Be good now, and sit down."

He slipped to the grass at her feet, and rested his head against her
knee.

She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender touch. Her Little Boy Blue
had come back to her. Oh, bliss unutterable! Why worry about the
future?

"How silly we were, dear!" he said. "How silly to suppose we could
part like that--you and I!" Then his sudden merry laugh rang out--oh,
such music! such sweet music! "I say, Christobel," he said, "it is all
very well _now_ to say 'Stop, and be good.' But on the seventh day,
when the walls fall down, and I march up into the citadel, I shall give
you millions of kisses--or will it be _billions_?"

"Judging from my knowledge of you, Boy dear," she said, "I rather
_think_ it would be billions."

Later, as they stood once more by the postern gate, he turned, framed
in the doorway, smiling a last gay good-bye.

It was their second parting that day, and how different from the first.
There was to be a third, unlike either, before the day was over; but
its approach was, as yet, unsuspected.

But as he stood in the doorway, full in a shaft of sunlight, the glad
certainty in his eyes smote her with sudden apprehension.

"Oh, Boy dear," she said, "take care! You are building castles again.
They will tumble about our ears. I haven't promised you anything,
Little Boy Blue of mine; and I am afraid I shall _have_ to marry the
Professor."

"If you do, dear," he said, "I shall have to give him a new umbrella as
a wedding present!" And the Boy went whistling down the lane.

But, out of sight of the postern gate and of the woman who, leaning
against it, watched him to the turning, he dropped his bounding step
and jaunty bearing. His face grew set and anxious; his walk, perplexed.

"Oh, God," said the Boy, as he walked, "don't let me lose her!"

A few minutes later, a telegram was put into his hand from the friend
left on the coast, in charge of his newest aeroplane.

"_Arrange Channel flight, if possible, day after to-morrow_."

"Not I," said the Boy, crumpling the message into his pocket. "The day
after to-morrow is the seventh day."

* * * * *

He was dining with friends, but an unaccountable restlessness seized
him during the evening. He made his excuses, and returned to the Bull
Hotel soon after nine o'clock. Th