In this way perhaps an hour passed; certainly no more.  Sylvia had, in fact, almost come to the end of her letters, when Garratt Skinner suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up.  At the noise, abrupt as a startled cry, Sylvia turned swiftly round.  She saw that her father was gazing with a look of perplexity into the garden, and that for the moment he had forgotten her presence.  She crossed the room quickly and noiselessly, and standing just behind his elbow, saw what he saw.  The blood flushed her throat and mounted into her cheeks, her eyes softened, and a smile of welcome transfigured her grave face.  Her friend Hilary Chayne was standing under the archway of the garden door.  He had closed the door behind him, but he had not moved thereafter, and he was not looking toward the house.  His attention was riveted upon the shooting-match.  Sylvia gave no thought to his attitude at the moment.  He had come—­that was enough.  And Garratt Skinner, turning about, saw the light in his daughter’s face.

“You know him!” he cried, roughly.

“Yes.”

“He has come to see you?”

“Yes.”

“You should have told me,” said Garratt Skinner, angrily.  “I dislike secrecies.”  Sylvia raised her eyes and looked her father steadily in the face.  But Garratt Skinner was not so easily abashed.  He returned her look as steadily.

“Who is he?” he continued, in a voice of authority.

“Captain Hilary Chayne.”

It seemed for a moment that the name was vaguely familiar to Garratt Skinner, and Sylvia added: 

“I met him this summer in Switzerland.”

“Oh, I see,” said her father, and he looked with a new interest across the garden to the door.  “He is a great friend.”

“My only friend,” returned Sylvia, softly; and her father stepped forward and called aloud, holding up his hand: 

“Barstow!  Barstow!”

Sylvia noticed then, and not till then, that the coming of her friend was not the only change which had taken place since she had last looked out upon the garden.  The new gardener was now shooting alternately with Walter Hine, while Captain Barstow, standing a few feet behind them, recorded the hits in a little book.  He looked up at the sound of Garratt Skinner’s voice and perceiving Chayne at once put a stop to the match.  Garratt Skinner turned again to his daughter, and spoke now without any anger at all.  There was just a hint of reproach in his voice, but as though to lessen the reproof he laid his hand affectionately upon her arm.

“Any friend of yours is welcome, of course, my dear.  But you might have told me that you expected him.  Let us have no secrets from each other in the future?  Now bring him in, and we will see if we can give him a cup of tea.”