oices of the stars sang their nightly anthem. The
earth was white with magic moonshine. Joan looked out. The old creeper
down which she had climbed to go to Martin that night which seemed so
far away was all in leaf. With what exhilaration she had dropped her
bag out. Had ever a girl been so utterly careless of consequences then
as she? How wonderfully and splendidly Martinish Martin had been when
she plunged in upon him, and how jolly and homelike the hall of his
house--her house--had seemed to be. To-morrow she would explore it all
and show it off to her family. To-morrow.... Yes, but to-night? Should
she allow herself to be carried away by a sudden longing to follow her
flying footsteps through the woods, pretend that Martin was waiting for
her and take a look at the outside of the house alone? Why not? No one
need know, and she had a sort of aching to see the place again that was
so essentially a part of Martin. Martin--Martin--he obsessed her, body
and brain. If only she could find Martin.

With hasty fingers she struggled with the intricate hooks of her
evening frock. Out of it finally, and slipping off her silk stockings
and thin shoes she went quickly to the big clothes closet, chose a
short country skirt, a pair of golf stockings, thick shoes and a
tam-o'-shanter, made for the drawer in which were her sport shirts and
sweaters and before the old round-faced clock on the mantelpiece could
recover from his astonishment became once more the Joan-all-alone for
whom he had ticked away the hours. Then to the window, and hand over
hand down the creeper again and away across the sleeping garden to the
woods.

The fairies were out. Their laughter was blown to her like thistledown.
But she was a woman now and only Martin called her--Martin who had
married her for love but was not her husband yet. Oh, where was Martin?

And as she went quickly along the winding path through the trees the
moon dropped pools of light in her way, the scrub oaks threw out their
arms to hold her back and hosts of little shadows seemed to run out to
catch at her frock. But on went Joan, just to get a sight of the house
that was Martin's and hers and to cast her spirit forward to the time
when he and she would live there as they had not lived in the city.

She marvelled and rejoiced at the change that had come over
her,--gradually, underminingly,--a change, the seeds of which had been
thrown by Alice, watered by Palgrave and forced by the dis