“Why . . . ?” he began.

She caught his wrist and held it tightly, compressing her fingers on it with a fierce force that amazed him.

“Mater!”

Had he really heard the word, or had he imagined it?

“Mater!”

He had heard it.

“It’s Jimmy!”

She had her thin lips close to his ear.  She still held his wrist in a grip of iron.

“He’s at the bottom of the garden.  He’ll come up here.  He won’t wait.  Go down and meet him.”

“But——­”

“Go down!  I’ll hide among the trees.  Let him come up here, or bring him up.  He must come.  Be sure he comes inside.  While you go I’ll light the lamp.  I can do it in a moment.  You couldn’t sleep.  You came here to read.  Of course you know nothing about me.  Keep him here for five or ten minutes.  You can come down then and help him to look for me.  Go at once.”

She took away her hand.

“My whole future depends upon you!”

Dion got up and went out.  As he went he heard her strike a match.

Scarcely knowing for a moment what he was doing, acting mechanically, in obedience to instinct, but always feeling a sort of terrible driving force behind him, he traversed the terrace on which the pavilion stood, passed the great plane tree and the wooden seat, and began to descend.  As he did so he heard again Jimmy’s voice crying: 

“Mater!”

“Jimmy!” he called out, in a loud voice, hurrying on.

As the sound died away he knew it had been nonchalant.  Surely she had made it so!

“Jimmy!” he called again.  “What’s up.  What’s the matter?”

There was no immediate reply, but in the deep silence Dion heard hurrying steps, and then: 

“Mr. Leith!”

“Hallo!”

“Mr. Leith—­it is you, is it?”

“Yes.  What on earth’s the matter?”

“Stop a sec!  I——­”

The feet were pounding upward.  Almost directly, in pyjamas and the slippers, which somehow still remained with him, Jimmy stood by Dion in the dark, breathing hard.

“Jimmy, what’s the matter?  What has happened?”

“I say, why are you here?”

“I couldn’t sleep.  The night was so hot.  I had nothing to read in my rooms.  Besides they’re stuck down right against the quay.  You know your mother’s kind enough to let me have a key of the garden gate.  I thought I might get more air on the top terrace.  I was reading in the pavilion when I thought I heard a call.”

“Then the mater isn’t there?”

“Your mother?”

“Yes!”

“Of course not.  Come on up!”

Dion took the boy by the arm with decision, and slowly led him upwards.

“What’s this about your mother?  Do you mean she isn’t asleep?”

“Asleep?  She isn’t in her bedroom!  She hasn’t been there!”

“Hasn’t been there?”

“Hasn’t been to bed at all!  I’ve been to her sitting-room—­you know, upstairs—­she isn’t there.  I’ve been in all the rooms.  She isn’t anywhere.  She must be somewhere about here.”