And soon they halted on the embankment of a mile-wide sheet of water, shining like a mirror in a setting of soft-bosomed hills, their dun day colour changed to a heavenly rose-purple under the poetic evening sky.

“Why, it is a lake,” said Guthrie Carey.  “You could hold regattas on it.”  “We do, now and then, with our little boats.  We have three over there”—­pointing with her whip to a white shed on the farther shore.  “And swimming matches.  We used sometimes, when we were younger, to come down on hot nights and be mermaids.  Once we moored ourselves out in the middle, away from the mosquitoes, and slept in the bottom of the boat, under the stars.”

“How charming!”

“It was holiday time, and our parents were away.  We took cushions and things, and it was great fun; but Keziah reported us, and we were never allowed to do it again.”

They sat in the pony-carriage on the dam embankment, gazing silently.  A flock of wildfowl had been scared away by their approach, and now not a wing, not an eye was near.  At a great distance curlews wailed, only to make the stillness and solitude more exquisite, more profound.  The purple of the hills grew deeper and softer, the lake a mere pulseless shimmer through the twilight haze.  And then, last touch of magic, the moon swam up—­the same moon that had transfigured Five Creeks garden and Alice Urquhart last night.

He poured out his soul to Deborah Pennycuick.

First, it was only the story of the baby—­the story he had told Alice, with some omissions and additions.  He took advantage of the opportunity to ask Deb’s invaluable advice.

Deb, well aware of the influence of a summer night and certain accessories, tried her best to be practical.  She asked straight questions about the baby.

“Where have you got him?  Where does this friend live who has been recommended to you?”

“In Sandridge—­all at Sandridge—­”

“That dirty, low part!  That’s no place to rear a boy in.  Bring him into the bush, to clean air, if you want to make a man of him.  I know a dear, nice woman—­she is our overseer’s wife—­who has no children, and is dying to get hold of one somehow or other.  We might make some arrangement with her, I am sure; and, if so, the little fellow would be in clover.  We’d all look after him, of course, while you were at sea—­”

“Oh! oh! oh!” The young father’s heart simply exhaled itself in gratitude too vast for words.  Ah! there was no hanging back now!  Not the baby only, but the dog-chain, was laid at Deborah’s feet.

“You go and fetch him tomorrow,” said she, “and I’ll talk to Mrs Kelsey while you are away.  Then I’ll meet you at the station on your return, to help you with him, and tell you what Mrs Kelsey says—­though I have no doubt of what it will be.  But we’ll keep him at Redford for a bit, till he gets used to everybody; and you must stay with him all you can until your ship sails. . . .”