Elisabeth smiled airily.  Apparently she had no scruples about the keeping of promises.

“That’s easily arranged,” she affirmed.  “I’ll write to your precious doctor man and tell him that we can’t spare you.”

As far as personal inclination was concerned, Sara would gladly have adopted Elisabeth’s suggestion.  She shrank inexpressibly from returning to Monkshaven, shrouded, as it was, in brief but poignant memories, but she had given Selwyn her word that she would go back, and, even in a comparatively unimportant matter such as this appeared, she had a predilection in favour of abiding by a promise.

Elisabeth demurred.

“You’re putting Dr. Selwyn before us,” she declared, candidly amazed.

“I promised him first,” replied Sara.  “In my position, you’d do the same.”

Elisabeth shook her head.

“I shouldn’t,” she replied with energy.  “The people I love come first—­all the rest nowhere.”

“Then I’m glad I’m one of the people you love,” retorted Sara, laughing.  “And, let me tell you, I think you’re a most unmoral person.”

Elisabeth looked at her reflectively.

“Perhaps I am,” she acknowledged.  “At least, from a conventional point of view.  Certainly I shouldn’t let any so-called moral scruples spoil the happiness of any one I cared about.  However, I suppose you would, and so we’re all to be offered up on the altar of this twopenny-halfpenny promise you’ve made to Dr. Selwyn?”

Sara laughed and kissed her.

“I’m afraid you are,” she said.

If anything could have reconciled her to the sacrifice of inclination she had made in returning to Monkshaven, it would have been the warmth of the welcome extended to her on her arrival.  Selwyn and Molly met her at the station, and Jane Crab, resplendent in a new cap and apron donned for the occasion, was at the gate when at last the pony brought the governess-cart to a standstill outside.  Even Mrs. Selwyn had exerted herself to come downstairs, and was waiting in the hall to greet the wanderer back.

“It will be a great comfort to have you back, my dear,” she said with unwonted feeling in her voice, and quite suddenly Sara felt abundantly rewarded for the many weary hours upstairs, trying to win Mrs. Selwyn’s interest to anything exterior to herself.

“You’re looking thinner,” was Selwyn’s blunt comment, as Sara threw off her hat and coat.  “What have you been doing with yourself?”

She flushed a little.

“Oh, racketing about, I suppose.  I’ve been living in a perfect whirl.  Never mind, Doctor Dick, you shall fatten me up now with your good country food and your good country air.  Good gracious!”—­as he closed a big thumb and finger around her slender wrist and shook his head disparagingly—­“Don’t look so solemn!  I was always one of the lean kine, you know.”

“I don’t think that London has agreed with you,” rumbled Selwyn discontentedly.  “Your pulse is as jerky as a primitive cinema film.  You’d better not be in such a hurry to run away from us again.  Besides, we can’t do without you, my dear.”