It mattered little enough to him, seeing what Scarfe already knew about him, what he thought of him at Wildtree.

On the whole, the less they met and the less they talked together, the less chance was there of rousing bitter memories.

The Scarfes would hardly remain more than a month.

If for that time he could efface himself, the danger might blow over, and he might be left at the end of the time with the secret of his bad name still safe at Wildtree Towers.
Kennedy's prophecy of a hard frost turned out to have been a knowing one.

All through Christmas week it continued with a severity rare even in that mountainous region; and when on New Year's Day the report reached Wildtree that a man had skated across the upper end of Wellmere it was admitted to be a frost which, to the younger generation of the place at least, "beat record." Percy was particularly enthusiastic, and terrified his mother by announcing that he meant to skate across Wellmere, too.