I saw these alternatives in a flash, and no sane man would have hesitated between them for one moment.

“But look here, Banks,” I said.  “What would your mother and—­and your sister say to having an unknown visitor foisted upon them without notice?”

“Oh! that’d be all right,” he said with conviction.

“There’s nothing I should like better than to stay with you,” I continued, “if I thought that your—­people would care to have me.”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” he said, “my father and mother haven’t come home yet.  They drove over to some relations of ours about twelve miles away, yesterday afternoon, and they won’t be back till about seven, probably.  Last chance my father had before harvest, and my mother likes to get away now and again when she can manage it.”

“They don’t know yet, then, about you and...?” I said, momentarily diverted by the new aspect this news put on the doings of the night.

“Not yet.  That’ll be all right, though,” Banks replied, and added as an afterthought, “The old man may be a bit upset.  I want to persuade ’em all to come out to Canada, you see.  There’s a chance there.  Mother would come like a shot, but I’m afraid the old man’ll be a bit difficult.”

“But, then, look here, Banks,” I said.  “You won’t want a stranger up there to-night of all nights—­interfering with your—­er—­family council.”

Banks scratched his head with a professional air.  “I dunno,” he said.  “It might help.”  He looked at me reflectively before adding, “You know She’s up there—­of course?”

“I didn’t,” I replied.  “Was she there last night when Jervaise and I went up?”

He shook his head.  “We meant to go off together and chance it,” he said.  “May as well tell you now.  There’s no secret about it among ourselves.  And then she came out to me on the hill without her things—­just in a cloak.  Came to tell me it was all off.  Said she wouldn’t go, that way....  Well, we talked....  Best part of three hours.  And the end of it was, she came back to the Farm.”

“And it isn’t all off?” I put in.

“The elopement is,” he said.

“But not the proposed marriage?”

He leaned against the door of the car with the air of one who is preparing for a long story.  “You’re sure you want to hear all this?” he asked.

“Quite sure—­that is, if you want to tell me,” I said.  “And if I’m coming home with you, it might be as well if I knew exactly how things stand.”

“I felt somehow as if you and me were going to hit it off, last night,” he remarked shyly.

“So did I,” I rejoined, not less shy than he was.

Our friendship had been admitted and confirmed.  No further word was needed.  We understood each other.  I felt warmed and comforted.  It was good to be once more in the confidence of a fellowman.  I have not the stuff in me that is needed to make a good spy.

“Well, the way things are at present,” Banks hurried on to cover our lapse into an un-British sentimentality, “is like this.  We’d meant, as I told you, to run away....”