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“She thought I was the ghost.”

“You shouldn’t reckon on people being foolish.”

“Shouldn’t I? Yet I reckoned on your coming–or there’d have been some more of me in the water.”

“I wish I were an irregular man,” said Charlie.

She was slowly turning down her sleeves, and, ignoring his remark, said, with a question in her tones:

“Nettie Wallace says that Willie Prime says that everybody says that you’re going to marry that girl.”

“I believe it’s quite true.”

“Oh!” and she looked across the Pool.

“True that everybody says so,” added Charlie. “Why do you turn down your sleeves?”

“How funny I must have looked, sprawling on the bank like that!” she remarked.

“Awful!” said Charlie, sitting down.

She looked at him with uneasiness in her eye.

“Nothing but an ankle, I swear,” he answered.

She blushed and smiled.

“I think you should whistle, or something, as you come.”

“Not I,” said Charlie, with decision.

Suddenly she turned to him with a serious face, or one that tried to be serious.

“Why do you come?” she asked.

“Why do I eat?” he returned.

“And yet you were angry the first time.”

“Nobody likes to be caught ranting out poetry especially his own.”

“I believe you were frightened–you thought I was Agatha. The poetry was about her, wasn’t it?”

“It’s not at all a bad poem,” observed Charlie.

“You remember I liked it so much that I clapped my hands.”

“And I jumped!”

The girl laughed.

“Ah, well,” she said, “it’s time to go home.”

“Oh, dear, no,” said Charlie!

“But I’ve promised to be early, because Willie Prime’s coming, and I’m to be introduced to him.”

“Willie Prime can wait. He’s got Miss Wallace to comfort him, and I’ve got nobody to comfort me.”

“Oh, yes. Miss Bushell.”

“You know her name?”

“Yes–and yours–your surname, I mean; you told me the other.”

“That’s more than you’ve done for me.”

“I told you my name was Agatha.”

“Ah, but that was a joke. I’d been talking about Agatha Merceron.”

“Very well. I’m sorry it doesn’t satisfy you. If you won’t believe me–!”

“But your surname?”

“Oh, mine? Why, mine’s Brown.”

“Brown!” re-echoed Charlie, with a tinge of disappointment in his tone.

“Don’t you like it?” asked Miss Agatha Brown with a smile.

“Oh, it will do for the present,” laughed Charlie.

“Well, I don’t mean to keep it all my life. I’ve spent to-day, Mr. Merceron, in spying out your house. Nettie Wallace and I ventured quite near. It’s very pretty.”

“Rather dilapidated, I’m afraid.”

“What’s the time, Mr. Merceron?”

“Half-past six. Oh, by Jove!”

“Well? Afraid of seeing poor Agatha?”

“I should see nobody but you, if you were here. No. I forgot that. I’ve got to meet someone at the station at a quarter-past seven.”

“Oh, do tell me who?”

“You’d be none the wiser. It’s a Mr. Victor Sutton.”

“Victor Sutton!” she exclaimed, with a glance at Charlie which passed unnoticed by him. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“I suppose so. Of my family’s, anyhow.”

“Good-by. I’m going,” she announced.

“You’ll be here to-morrow?”

“Yes. For the last time.”

She dropped this astounding thunderbolt on Charlie’s head as though it had been the most ordinary remark in the world.

“The last time! Oh, Miss—” No: somehow he could not lay his tongue to that “Miss Brown.”

“I can’t spend all my life in Lang Marsh,” said she.

“Agatha,” he burst out.

“No, no. This is not the last time. Sha’n’t we keep that?” she asked, with a provokingly light-hearted smile.

“You promise to be here to-morrow?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I shall have something to say to you then,” Charlie announced with a significant air.

“Oh, you never lack conversation.”

“You’ll be here at five?”

“Precisely,” she answered with mock gravity; “and now I’m gone!”

Charlie took off his straw hat, stretched out his right hand, and took hers. For a moment she drew back, but he looked very handsome and gallant as he bowed his head down to her hand, and she checked the movement.

“Oh, well!” she murmured; she was protesting against any importance being attached to the incident.

Charlie, having paid his homage, walked, or rather ran, swiftly away. To begin with, he had none too much time if he was to meet Victor Sutton; secondly, he was full of a big resolve, and that generally makes a man walk fast.