“Janet, I want to ask you something before I go into the village.  There are one or two things we must get in, if Mrs. Crofton is coming this evening—­”

The little boy did not wait to hear his mother’s answer.  He crept very quietly out of the open window, which was close to his table, and then made his way round to the first of the long French windows of the dining-room.  He was just in time to hear his brother Tom ask in a very solemn tone:  “I say, you fellows!  Wasn’t Betty once engaged to this Radmore chap?”

Timmy, skilfully ensconced behind the full old green damask curtains, listened, with all his ears, for the answer.

“Yes,” said Jack at last, with a touch of reluctance.  “They were engaged, but not for very long.  Still, they’d been fond of one another for an age and George was his greatest friend—­”

Rosamund broke in:  “Do tell us what he’s like, Jack!  I suppose you can remember him quite well?”

Jack hesitated, rather uncomfortably.

“Of course I remember Radmore very well indeed.  He had quite a tidy bit of money, as both his parents were dead.  His snuffy old guardian had been at Balliol with father.  So father was asked to coach him.  And then, well, I suppose as time went on, and Betty began growing up, he fell in love with her.”

“And she with him?” interposed Rosamund.

“A girl is apt to like any man who likes her,” said Jack loftily.  “But I believe ’twas he made all the fuss when the engagement was broken off.”

“But why was it broken off?” asked Rosamund.

“Because he’d lost all his money racing.”

“What a stupid thing to do!” exclaimed Tom.

“The row came during the Easter holidays,” went on Jack meditatively, “and there was a fearful dust-up.  Like an idiot, Radmore had gone and put the whole of the little bit of money he had saved out of the fire on an outsider he had some reason to think would be bound to romp in first—­and the horse was not even placed!”

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Rosamund.

“He rushed down here,” went on Jack, “to say that he had made up his mind to go to Australia.  And he was simply amazed when father and Janet wouldn’t hear of Betty going with him.”

“Would she have liked to go?” asked Tom.

“Well, yes—­I believe she would.  But of course it was out of the question.  Father could have given her nothing, even then, so how could they have lived?  There was a fearful rumpus, and in the end Godfrey went off in a tearing rage.”

“Shaking the dust of Old Place off his indignant feet, eh?” suggested Tom.

“Yes, all that sort of thing.  George was having scarlet fever—­in a London hospital—­so of course he was quite out of it.”

“Then, at last Godfrey reopened communication via Timmy?” suggested the younger boy.

“Timmy’s got the letter still,” chimed in Rosamund.  “I saw it in his play-box the other day.  It was rather a funny letter—­I read it.”