"Ah then, here you are!" she said, with a large welcoming smile. "And the dinner I haf been keeping for you for an hour an' more."
"You're a good angel, Mrs. Carré," said Graeme gratefully. "We are a bit late, aren't we? I hope you've put yesterday's dinner and to-day's together. We've had nothing to eat to speak of for a month. What did you think when we never turned up last night?"
"Oh, but I knew you would be all right. There iss a house on Brecqhou, and there iss watter, and you had things to eat, and it was better on Brecqhou last night than on the watter."
"It was," said Graeme heartily, and sped off up the garden for a much-needed wash and brush-up.
"Now what would I like myself if I was in their place?" asked Miss Penny of herself, while she rectified the omissions of the last two days in the matter of Nature's cravings for a more varied diet than Brecqhou afforded.
"Why, to be alone and free from the observation of Miss Hennie Penny," she promptly answered herself, and as promptly acted on it.
"Meg, my dear, I am aweary. I am not accustomed to playing Swiss Family Robinson. By your leave, Monsieur and Mademoiselle, I will wish you good-night and pleasant dreams," and she went off into the bedroom.
"May she have as tactful a chaperone when her own time comes," said Graeme, with a smile. "Do you think you would sleep better if you went to bed at once or if you had a little walk first?"
"I am not the least bit sleepy," said Margaret.
"Then a stroll will do you good," and they went out into the night. And Miss Penny, as she heard their feet on the cobbles, smiled to herself a little wistfully.
Such a night of stars! The gale had swept the heavens and thinned the upper air till the Milky Way was a wide white track strewn thick with jewels, and the greater lights shone large and close. As they sauntered in silence towards La Tour, their faces towards the stars among which their full hearts were ranging in glorious companionship, one of the lesser lights silently loosed its hold and dropped slowly from zenith to horizon, in a fiery groove that momentarily eclipsed all else.
And while Graeme was still pressing to his heart the soft arm that lay in his, in silent enjoyment of the sight and at their sharing it, another star swung loose, and another, and another, till the glittering vault seemed laced with fiery trails and they stood in rapt admiration.