Just for a moment she looked very much taken aback, then she smiled, “I’ve come down to make a cup of tea for Nanna.”

“So I suppose, but you must have a cup first.  See, I’m making some for you.”

“Are you?” She tried not to show the surprise she felt.

“While you’re having it, we’ll make Nanna a cup of tea with the water in the thermos there.  But where’s the milk?”

He saw her face from merry become sad.  “I always save some milk for Josephine,” she said.  “I’ll go and get it now.  But we mustn’t use it all; I must save some for that poor cat.”

“You’ll have to go a long way to give milk to Josephine,” he observed.

She looked at him, startled, and going to the scullery door, glanced quickly at the corner where stood the now empty basket.

“Where is she?” she exclaimed—­and her whole face lightened.  “Oh, Godfrey, have you managed to hide her away?”

He nodded.  “Yes, ever so many miles away, where no one will find her.”

“What do you mean?” She could not conceal her astonishment—­her astonishment and her intense relief.

“Timmy and I spirited her away,” he went on, “to a cat’s paradise where she’s going to be kept under observation.”

“Won’t Dr. O’Farrell be very angry?”

“I don’t think he’ll mind as much as he’ll pretend to.  The moment he was told about her kittens he knew that the cat wasn’t mad at all.”

“The person who will be angry,” exclaimed Betty, “is Mrs. Crofton!  I thought it horribly cruel of her to say what she did last night.”

“It was rather vindictive,” he said reflectively.  “On the other hand, you must remember that she’d had an awful shock.  I don’t wonder she felt angry with Josephine, eh?” He looked a little quizzically, a little deprecatingly, over at Betty.

“Still it seemed so—­so unnecessary that she should ask for the cat to be killed.”  Betty was now bustling about the kitchen with a heightened colour.

Radmore poured out a cup of tea.  “Now then,” he said, “do come and sit down quietly, and take your tea, Betty.”  Rather to his surprise, she meekly obeyed.

Presently she asked him, “But why have you got up so early?”

And then he told her the story of his and Timmy’s night expedition, ending up with:  “I intend going round to Dr. O’Farrell’s house about eight o’clock.  It wouldn’t be fair to let the old fellow come down here to indulge his sporting instincts, eh?”

To that Betty made no answer, and as the water was now boiling she went across to the dresser and brought a clean cup and saucer.  “Now then, Godfrey, this cup is for you.  Nanna can wait a little longer for hers.”

He sat down opposite to her, and into both their minds there came the thought that if they had married and gone out to Australia they would have often sat thus together in the early morning.

And then, when Nanna’s cup of tea was at last ready, together with some nice thin bread and butter cut, he asked, “Can’t I carry the tray up for you?”