“You won’t entrust me with the smallest word?” said he, and set her visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word.  She could not; she had no heart for messages.

“I shall see her in a day or two, Colonel De Craye.”

“She will miss you severely.”

“We shall soon meet.”

“And poor Willoughby!”

Laetitia coloured and stood silent.

A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay.

“I fear he has been doing mischief,” she said.  “I cannot get him to look at me.”

“His appetite is good?”

“Very good indeed.”

De Craye nodded.  A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless lock.

The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the garden.

“And now,” said the colonel, “we’ll see if we can’t arrange a meeting between you and Miss Middleton.  You’re a lucky fellow, for she’s always thinking of you.”

“I know I’m always thinking of her,” said Crossjay.

“If ever you’re in a scrape, she’s the person you must go to.”

“Yes, if I know where she is!”

“Why, generally she’ll be at the Hall.”

There was no reply:  Crossjay’s dreadful secret jumped to his throat.  He certainly was a weaker lock for being full of breakfast.

“I want to see Mr. Whitford so much,” he said.

“Something to tell him?”

“I don’t know what to do:  I don’t understand it!” The secret wriggled to his mouth.  He swallowed it down.  “Yes, I want to talk to Mr. Whitford.”

“He’s another of Miss Middleton’s friends.”

“I know he is.  He’s true steel.”

“We’re all her friends, Crossjay.  I flatter myself I’m a Toledo when I’m wanted.  How long had you been in the house last night before you ran into me?”

“I don’t know, sir; I fell asleep for some time, and then I woke! . . .”

“Where did you find yourself?”

“I was in the drawing-room.”

“Come, Crossjay, you’re not a fellow to be scared by ghosts?  You looked it when you made a dash at my midriff.”

“I don’t believe there are such things.  Do you, colonel?  You can’t!”

“There’s no saying.  We’ll hope not; for it wouldn’t be fair fighting.  A man with a ghost to back him’d beat any ten.  We couldn’t box him or play cards, or stand a chance with him as a rival in love.  Did you, now, catch a sight of a ghost?”

“They weren’t ghosts!” Crossjay said what he was sure of, and his voice pronounced his conviction.

“I doubt whether Miss Middleton is particularly happy,” remarked the colonel.  “Why?  Why, you upset her, you know, now and then.”

The boy swelled.  “I’d do . . .  I’d go . . .  I wouldn’t have her unhappy . . .  It’s that! that’s it!  And I don’t know what I ought to do.  I wish I could see Mr. Whitford.”

“You get into such headlong scrapes, my lad.”

“I wasn’t in any scrape yesterday.”