"Your sister was good enough to ask us, and I shall be only too delighted to avail myself of her kind invitation."
"I really will not let you come any further with me," she declared as they reached the manor gates. "I fear, as it is, I have taken you very much out of your way, and it must be late."
"It is close upon seven," he told her after looking at his watch. "And you dine?"
"At seven, and let me warn you now that to be late is to meet with my sister's ire."
"I shall remember," he answered, with his pleasant laugh. "And now can I not see you to your door?"
"No, indeed. I must hurry away," she said as they shook hands, "for time, tide, and dinner at the manor wait for no man. Good-by."
"Until to-morrow," he said, as he turned away.
CHAPTER VI.
A DINNER AT THE MANOR.
It was the evening of the dinner given in honor of the naval officers, and even as the old Dutch clock in the corner of the manor hall struck the hour of seven, Farr was shaking hands with Mrs. Dennis.
"I am so sorry," she said to him with a sweet smile, "that I shall be obliged to absent myself from the dinner table to-night, but my strength is not very great and I dare not overtax it. My niece Helen," with a proud accent, which was not lost upon Farr, "has taken my place for so long that I feel no hesitation in leaving everything in her hands."