suddenly when she put her arm through his, and for some moments he walked without speaking, holding her arm rigidly as though he were abnormally conscious of her touch.
He said good night to them at the door of the inn—a mere whitewashed cottage, much added on to—and Judy marveled at the change in his face when the light fell on it from the open door—the change wrought in it by a few hours of happiness. It seemed to her that it was a different being who had stared out at them from his own door earlier that evening.
"Good night," he said for the third time. "I won't try to thank you for coming. I can't."
And he vanished abruptly into the darkness. ****** "The question before the house," said Noel the next morning at breakfast, "is this: how am I going to lose myself to-day?"
"Oh, no!" cried Judy in a panic at the thought. "You're not to, Noel. Please don't leave me. I've quite changed my mind. I think it's much better to let things take their own course."
"All right, let them," he agreed. "All I mean to do is to clear the course a bit. It's going to be rather difficult. I think I'd better leave it to the inspiration of the moment."
