crouching there. The embers glowed as red as
when she had been fire-gazing, but they did not show what it was she had
seen in the fire. They kept her secrets as safely as she kept them
herself; as youth must keep its secrets, inarticulate, dumb, because it
sees into the heart of the world so deeply that if it were granted
speech it would make the world too wise. What Judith had seen in the
fire, what had really been in her heart when she talked to Willard in
the groping and pitiful language of youth, the only language she had,
the fire could not tell, and perhaps Judith did not know.

It was still, and the tiniest sounds were exaggerated: a board creaking
at the head of the stairs, and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking,
the ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent sounds, but the
silence became a listening hush because of them: listening harder and
harder. At last a sound broke it: the doorbell, rung three times, one
long peal and two short.

It was rung faintly, but loud enough. There was a soft hurry of
slippered feet down the stairs, and a slender figure, tall in
straight-falling draperies, slipped cautiously down and across the hall
to the door, stopped and stood leaning with one ear pressed against it,
silent and motionless, hardly breathing. The faint signal was repeated.
Judith did not move.

There was one more ring, a soft tapping, and then silence. Judith
listened for a minute, then whistled softly, a clear little signal, one
long and two short, like the signal ring. There was no answer. She
pulled frantically at the chain, got it loose, and threw open the door.

A boy was standing on the steps, a stolid, unmoving figure, looming
deceptively tall in the dark. He did not step forward or greet her.
Judith put out a groping hand and caught at his shoulder.

"Is it you? Oh, I thought you had gone," she said. "I was watching for
you upstairs."

"I am going. I can't come in so late."

"No, of course not."

"Then what made you watch for me?"

"I wanted to see if you came."

"Well, I did come, and now I'm going."

"You walked past the house five times."

"Eight." The boy laughed shortly, and Judith's soft laugh echoed his.
"Oh, what's the use? I'm going."

"Don't you want to come in?"

"No."

"Then what made you walk past the house?"

"You know well enough."

"I want you to tell me.... You can come in just five minutes if you want
to."

"I--you----"

Judith caught her traili