; for he made no exclamations and showed no disturbance,
though Wych Hazel in the woods at that time of night, was a
thing to try most people's command of words at least. Only in
the spring which brought him across the road he had spoken the
one word "Hazel!" louder than an Indian would have done. Then
he stood beside her. Wych Hazel herself--bareheaded, without
gloves, her little white evening cloak not around her
shoulders, but rolled up into the smallest possible compass,
and held down by her side. She had been standing in the
deepest depth of shadow under a low drooping hemlock, and now
came out to meet him. But she seemed to have no more words to
give. That something had happened, was very clear. Rollo's
first move was to take the girl's hand, and the second to
inquire in a low voice how she came there. The hand-touch was
not in compliment, but such a taking-possession clasp as Hazel
had felt from it before; one that carried, as a hand-clasp
can, its guaranty of protection, guidance, defence.

Hazel did not answer at first--only there went a shiver over
her from head to foot; and her hand was as cold as ice.

'I am very glad to find you, Mr. Rollo,' she said in a sort of
measured voice; he could not tell what was in it.--'Will you
walk home with me?'

Rollo's answer was not in a hurry. He first took from Wych
Hazel her little bundle of the opera cloak, shook it out, and
put it around her shoulders, drawing the fastening button at
the throat; then taking the little cold hand in his clasp
again, and with the other arm lingering lightly round her
shoulders, he asked her "what had happened?"

People are different, as has been remarked. There was nobody
in the world that could have put the question to Wych Hazel as
he put it, and afterwards she could recognize that. Mr.
Falkirk's words would have been more anxious; Dr. Maryland's
would have been more astonished; and any one of Miss Hazel's
admirers would have made speeches of surprise and sympathy and
offered service. Rollo's was a business question, albeit in
its somewhat curt accentuation there lurked a certain
readiness for action; and there was besides, though
indefinably expressed, the assumption of a right to know and a
very intimate personal concern in the answer. How his eyes
were looking at her the moonlight did not serve to shew; they
were in shadow; yet even that was not quite hid from the
object of them; and the arm that was round her was there, not