ut
wasting time looking for a key that was mislaid, and I ran up a ladder
and got in by the window. That was all; but unfortunately I put down my
foot trusting to alight on the floor, leant all my weight on an empty
box, and--this is the consequence!"

It was an extraordinary statement, despite the matter-of-course manner
in which the words were uttered. It is not usual in well-conducted
households for gentlemen visitors to scramble through windows on the
second storey, or for the daughter of the house to utilise such services
to remedy the effect of her own carelessness. The parents of ordinary
children would have been breathless with horror at listening to such a
recital, but it must be remembered that Arthur and Peggy Saville had
never been ordinary in their habits. From earliest youth they had
scorned the obvious ways of locomotion, had chosen to descend the
staircase on a toboggan improvised out of a kitchen tea-tray rather than
to walk from step to step like rational beings, and to ascend on the
outside rather than the inside of the banisters, so that their
belongings had grown to expect the unexpected, and Major Darcy's
explanation caused less consternation than might have been expected.

Mrs Saville sighed, and her husband uttered an exclamation of
impatience, but both were much more concerned about the condition of the
invalid than the cause of his accident, for it was evident that with
every moment the pain in the foot grew more severe.

"A pretty bad consequence, it seems to me!" quoth the colonel grimly.
"I'll tell you what it is, my dear fellow; you had better come into the
library with me at once, and let me take you in hand. The others can
get on with their lunch while Mary brings me what I want. I'll make you
comfortable in ten minutes, and then we'll send over a cart to The
Larches and get a bag packed, and keep you here for a day or two until
you can get about again. Least thing we can do to nurse you round, when
you have hurt yourself in our service."

Hector protested, but in no very vigorous fashion. Truth to tell, the
prospect of being housed at Yew Hedge, with the colonel as companion and
Peggy as nurse, was much more congenial than the thought of returning to
the big, desolate house where Rob reigned in solitary state and the
sitting-rooms were shrouded in holland wrappings. He allowed himself to
be persuaded, submitted to the sponging and binding which ensued with a
docility which a