Just at this moment there was a knock at the door and I hurried out.  The postmaster’s boy was there with a telegram.  I tore it open, glanced at it, and dashed back into the room.

“What is it now?” cried Ismay, beholding my face.

I held out the telegram.  It was from Aunt Cynthia.  She had wired us to send Fatima to Halifax by express immediately.

For the first time Max did not seem ready to rush into the breach with a suggestion.  It was I who spoke first.

“Max,” I said, imploringly, “you’ll see us through this, won’t you?  Neither Ismay nor I can rush off to Halifax at once.  You must go to-morrow morning.  Go right to 110 Hollis Street and ask for ‘Persian.’  If the cat looks enough like Fatima, buy it and take it to Aunt Cynthia.  If it doesn’t—­but it must!  You’ll go, won’t you?”

“That depends,” said Max.

I stared at him.  This was so unlike Max.

“You are sending me on a nasty errand,” he said, coolly.  “How do I know that Aunt Cynthia will be deceived after all, even if she be short-sighted.  Buying a cat in a joke is a huge risk.  And if she should see through the scheme I shall be in a pretty mess.”

“Oh, Max,” I said, on the verge of tears.

“Of course,” said Max, looking meditatively into the fire, “if I were really one of the family, or had any reasonable prospect of being so, I would not mind so much.  It would be all in the day’s work then.  But as it is—­”

Ismay got up and went out of the room.

“Oh, Max, please,” I said.

“Will you marry me, Sue?” demanded Max sternly.  “If you will agree, I’ll go to Halifax and beard the lion in his den unflinchingly.  If necessary, I will take a black street cat to Aunt Cynthia, and swear that it is Fatima.  I’ll get you out of the scrape, if I have to prove that you never had Fatima, that she is safe in your possession at the present time, and that there never was such an animal as Fatima anyhow.  I’ll do anything, say anything—­but it must be for my future wife.”

“Will nothing else content you?” I said helplessly.

“Nothing.”

I thought hard.  Of course Max was acting abominably—­but—­but—­ he was really a dear fellow—­and this was the twelfth time—­and there was Anne Shirley!  I knew in my secret soul that life would be a dreadfully dismal thing if Max were not around somewhere.  Besides, I would have married him long ago had not Aunt Cynthia thrown us so pointedly at each other’s heads ever since he came to Spencervale.

“Very well,” I said crossly.

Max left for Halifax in the morning.  Next day we got a wire saying it was all right.  The evening of the following day he was back in Spencervale.  Ismay and I put him in a chair and glared at him impatiently.

Max began to laugh and laughed until he turned blue.

“I am glad it is so amusing,” said Ismay severely.  “If Sue and I could see the joke it might be more so.”