“That isn’t very fast,” said Jerry, “for I’m lame, you see,” and the child coloured painfully as he said it.
“And I believe it’s beginning to snow,” said Claudia, anxiously. “I do wish I could send you home somehow. Come up with me to the stables, and I’ll see what can be done.”
“Oh no, no, thank you,” said Jerry eagerly, for now that his great purpose was achieved, a nervous shyness was beginning to overpower him, and he felt only eager to get away. “I shall be all right. I’m going to meet our dog-cart down by the ‘Jolly Thrashers.’”
“You are sure?”
“Quite,” he repeated. “Good-bye, Miss Meredon, and thank you again, awfully.”
They shook hands, and the boy set off. Claudia stood watching him through the now fast falling snow.
“I hope he will be all right,” she said to herself as she turned towards the lodge gates.
Neither she nor Jerry had realised how long they had been talking. When Claudia went in she found Lady Mildred on the point of sending out to see if she had taken refuge at the lodge from the snow.
“I should have felt very unhappy about that poor boy if he had had any further to go than the ‘Thrashers,’” thought Claudia to herself more than once as the afternoon drew on into evening, and the snow fell so fast that one could not tell when the daylight really faded.