“I wonder you aren’t ashamed of yourself,” said Miss Feste.  “At your age you ought to have sown all your wild oats.”

“So I have,” I said stoutly.  “And they weren’t at all wild, either.  I’ve never seen such a miserable crop.  As soon as the sun rose, they all withered away.”

“The sun?”

I turned and looked at her.  The steady brown eyes held mine with a searching look.  I met it faithfully.  After a few seconds they turned away.

“The sun?” she repeated quietly.

“The sun, Adele.  The sun that rose in America in 1895.  Out of the foam of the sea.  I can’t tell you the date, but it must have been a beautiful day.”

There was a pause.  Then—­

“How interesting!” said Adele.  “So it withered them up, did it?”

I nodded.

“You see, Adele, they had no root.”

“None of them?”

“None.”

Adele looked straight ahead of her into the box-hedge, which rose, stiff and punctilious, ten paces away, the counterpart of that beneath which we were sitting.  For once in a way, her merry smile was missing.  In its stead Gravity sat in her eyes, hung on the warm red lips.  I had known her solemn before, but not like this.  The proud face looked very resolute.  There was a strength about the lift of the delicate chin, a steadfast fearlessness about the poise of the well-shaped head—­unworldly wonders, which I had never seen.  Over the glorious temples the soft dark hair swept rich and lustrous.  The exquisite column of her neck rose from her flowered silk gown with matchless elegance.  Her precious hands, all rosy, lay in her lap.  Crossed legs gave me twelve inches of slim silk stocking and a satin slipper, dainty habiliments, not half so dainty as their slender charge....

The stable clock struck the half-hour.

Half-past six.  People had been to tea—­big-wigs—­and we were resting after our labours.  It was the perfect evening of a true summer’s day.

Nobby appeared in the foreground, strolling unconcernedly over the turf and pausing now and again to snuff the air or follow up an odd clue of scent that led him a foot or so before it died away and came to nothing.

“How,” said Adele slowly, “did you come by Nobby?”

Painfully distinct, the wraith of Josephine Childe rose up before me, pale and accusing.  Fragments of the letter which had offered me the Sealyham re-wrote themselves upon my brain.... It nearly breaks my heart to say so, but I’ve got to part with Nobby....  I think you’d get on together ... if you’d like to have him. ...  And there was nothing in it.  It was a case of smoke without fire.  But—­I could have spared the question just then....

Desperately I related the truth.

“A girl called Josephine Childe gave him to me.  She wanted to find a home for him, as she was going overseas.”

“Oh.”