“Billy!  My dear old William!”

That was all the doctor heard.  Then he brushed his hand across his eyes and stole away out of the room.  Alone in the kitchen, he wiped his eyes again and blew his nose violently.

“That tells the story,” he muttered to himself.  “I wish there were more such marriages.  But I thought for one while that there wasn’t much chance for him.”  Then he shrugged his shoulders and put on his most professional manner, as he went back to his patient.

“Stop your lovering, Ted, and give him another drink of this.  Lie where you are, for half an hour, Billy; then let Teddy tuck you up warm in bed and sleep it off.  You did a fine thing, a mighty fine thing, and Hope will have something to say to you in the morning.”

“All right, thank you, only rather stiff in the joints, so the doctor advised me to keep still, to-day,” Billy said to Gifford Barrett, the next night.

The young man had met Hubert on the beach, that morning; but apparently he could be satisfied by no second-hand report from the Lodge.  In the late twilight, he came strolling up to the seaward porch where he found Billy stretched out at his ease on a bamboo couch, and the others grouped around him, in full tide of family gossip.

“Then you are really none the worse for your ducking?” Mr. Barrett asked, as he took the chair that Theodora offered him.

“Rather stiff, and a bruise or two, nothing to count at all.”

“And the boy?”

“Lively as a sand flea.”

“How did he happen to get into the water, in the first place?” Mr. Barrett inquired.

“Chiefly because his Aunt Phebe advised him to be careful, or he would get his feet wet,” Hope answered.  “There is no use in my trying to excuse my naughty boy, Mr. Barrett.  Mac was so eager to assure my sister that she didn’t own him that, in his defiance, he backed straight into the water.”

“Oh, Hope, what is the use of telling, now it is all over?” Phebe’s remonstrant tones came from inside the house.

Gifford Barrett rose and went towards the door.

“Are you there, Miss McAlister?  I hoped I should see you.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

The minute was a long one.  Then Phebe stepped through the open doorway into the stronger light outside.  Her face flushed a little, as she reluctantly touched the young man’s outstretched hand; but that was all there was to show that she recalled the last words they had exchanged, the day before.

“I wanted to see you,” he went on, as he seated himself once more.  “I am going away, to-morrow night, and before I went, I had something I wished to tell—­to explain, that is, to you all.”

A sudden tension seemed to make itself felt throughout the group.  No one of them had the remotest idea of what he was about to say, yet even Dr. McAlister drew his chair a few inches nearer, while Cicely, in her corner, fairly bounced in her excitement.