Presently from the tower of the little church,
half a mile down the river, a bell began to strike the hour. "Six
o'clock!--Peter will be here directly. Now, _he's_ got to be
lectured--for his good. I'm tired of lecturing myself. It's somebody
else's turn--"
And taking a letter from her pocket, she read and pondered it with
smiling eyes. "Peter will think I'm a witch. Dear old Peter! ... Hullo!"
For the sound of her name, shouted by some one still invisible, caught
her ear. She shouted back, and in another minute the boyish form of
Peter Dale emerged among the oaks above her. Three leaps, and he was
at her side.
"I say, Helena, this is jolly! You were a brick to write. How I got
here I'm sure I don't know. I seem to have broken every rule, and
put everybody out. My boss will sack me, I expect. Never mind!--I'd
do it again!"
And dropping to a seat beside her, on a fallen branch that had somehow
escaped the deluge of the day, he feasted his eyes upon her. She had
clambered back into her seat, and taken off her water-proof hat. Her hair
was tumbling about her ears, and her bright cheeks were moist with rain,
or rather with the intermittent showers that the wind shook every now and
then from the still dripping oak trees above her.
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