Caroline was staring at the white-flecked sea. Her heart was throbbing in her throat; to speak was beyond her.
"Yes," said Camilla, "I saw at once that the worst of his anger had burned out, and so I took my courage in both hands and went straight up to him, and I asked him boldly if I had to congratulate him. I think I rather startled him," Camilla said composedly; "anyhow, he would not speak at first, and then, when he had thawed, he told me that he had proposed to you half a dozen times, but that you would not have anything to do with him. He said something more; that you were the best sort he had ever come across, and that if there was anybody in the world who could pull him up and make a decent fellow of him, he thought you were the person who could do it, and I could see he was in earnest. Fancy you and Sammy being such friends. You funny, quiet Caroline! Perhaps it is you who have made him so amiable to me!" But Camilla rejected this idea even as she said it. "No, I expect he knows I have done for myself this time, and as I am going to be paid out for all my sins, he feels, perhaps, he can afford to be a little generous. Anyhow, I am glad you won't have anything to do with him. I have a good mind to make up a match between him and this girl who is with us to-day. She would jump at him, if only for his title. Funny," Camilla mused. "That was never one of my weaknesses."
At this moment Betty came flying after them, announcing that déjeûner was ready, and that everybody was waiting.
It was a merry meal, thanks entirely to Camilla and the children, and very shortly afterwards the motor-party started again from Dieppe. When they were gone, Mrs. Brenton said to Caroline—
"I don't fancy Sammy will come here any more. I tried to get five minutes alone with him, but he avoided me."
Betty pushed a letter into Caroline's hands.
"You're to read that when you're quite alone. Sammy gived it to me," she said mysteriously; then she danced off, and Mrs. Brenton, with one quick glance at the girl, turned and went into the hotel.
Caroline walked into the garden. She crossed the bridge under which the clear white water of the mountain spring ran down to the sea, and opened Broxbourne's letter. Inside the envelope there was a sheet of paper on which nothing was written. Inside this paper there was a cheque.
She just glanced at it and then crushed it in her hand.