When he was within a few hundred yards of the Torp yard, he glanced at his watch and realized that he was still a good deal too early. It would be, he felt, a great blunder to present himself at that house, and find no Gerda! Looking around for a resting-place, he espied a small patch of grass behind some rickety palings, in the centre of which was a stone water-trough. He clambered through the palings and sat down on the ground, with his back to this object. It was then, as he lit a cigarette, that he remembered that he had not yet read his letters.

He opened them one by one. They were both short. Miss Gault’s ran as follows⁠—