"The Willows! No. Or rather, yes, it is about the Willows—" She burst out laughing. "Don't look so frightened, poor Upton! The wrongdoing's mine, all mine. I believe I promised to meet your cousin there this afternoon, to let him take a look at the books… ." She looked interrogatively at Upton, and caught his motion of assent. "Didn't I? Yes. Well—and I didn't go. It was all my fault. The fact is I was … prevented … at the last minute. I should so like to see him and explain… ."

"Oh," said Upton, with evident relief. He glanced about him timidly, away from her sweeping searching eyes: "If you'll step into the parlour, Miss Halo—"

She shook her head. "No, I won't do that, or your mother'll feel she ought to leave her supper to receive me. And I've only got a minute—I'm meeting a friend at the station," she reminded herself with a start, for that also she had been near forgetting. "So if you'll just ask your cousin—Vance, that's his name, isn't it?—ask him to come out here and say two words to me … "

"Oh, certainly," Upton agreed. He turned back into the house, but the visitor caught him by the sleeve. "Upton! Listen. Don't mention my name; don't tell Vance I'm here. Just say it's somebody with a message—somebody with a message," she repeated, trying with her sharp italics to bore the fact into the youth's brain.

"Oh, certainly," Upton repeated. He walked away to the back of the house, and Héloïse, already partly rid of her burden of self-reproach, as she always tended to be the moment she had given it expression, stood looking absently over the garden, the broken-down fence, and the darkness already gathering in the folds of the hills.

She heard another step, and saw Vance Weston. He stood gazing at her with wide open eyes, his face small and drawn from his recent illness. In the twilight of the library at the Willows he had not looked so boyish; now she was struck by his frailness and immaturity, and felt sorrier than ever that she had failed to keep her promise.

"It's me, Vance. I've come to apologize about this afternoon."

"Oh—" he began, as awkwardly as Upton.

"You went to the Willows after lunch, and waited for me?" He nodded without speaking.

"Waited hours?"

"I didn't mind. I sat in the porch. I liked it."

"Well, it was hideous of me—hideous! I don't know how … "

He looked at her in surprise. "How could you help it? Upton said something prevented you—"