me. But you're mine,
aren't you? Tell me you are. And you forgive me for--everything? Tell
me, Judith."

She seemed in no hurry to tell him. She faced him silently, her white
dress whiter than ever in the fading light, and her face big eyed and
expressionless. He waited reverently for her answer, and quite
confidently, picking up the elaborate hat mechanically, and then
smoothing the ribbons tenderly, and pulling at the flowers, as he
realized what he held.

"Poor little hat," he said softly, with the brogue coaxing insinuatingly
in his voice. "Poor little girl. I didn't mean to frighten you. And I
didn't mean to--that night.... Judith!"

It was undoubtedly Judith who confronted him, and no strange lady now.
It was as if she had been waiting for some cue from him, and heard it,
and sprung into life again, not the strange lady, not even the girl of
the year before, but a long-ago Judith, the child who had come to his
rescue on a forgotten May night, the child of the moonlit woods, with
her shrill voice and flashing eyes. She was that Judith again, but grown
to a woman, and now she was not his ally, but his enemy. She snatched
the beflowered hat away, and swung it upon her head with the same
reckless hand that had swept the lantern to the ground in her childish
defence of him. Her eyes defied him.

"That night," she stormed, "that night. Don't you ever speak of that
night to me again. I never want to hear you speak again. I never want to
see you again. I'll never forgive you as long as I live. I hate you!"

"Judith, listen to me," begged the boy. "Listen. You must."

But the girl who swept past him and turned to confront him at the door
was past listening to him. Words that she hardly heard herself, and
would not remember, came to her, and she flung them at him in a
breathless little burst of speech that hurt and was meant to hurt. The
boy took it silently, not trying to interrupt, slow colour reddening his
cheeks, his eyes growing angry then sullen. The words that Judith used
hardly mattered. They were futile and childish words, but because of the
blaze of anger behind them, that had been gathering long and would go on
after they were forgotten, they were splendid, too.

"I hate you! I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anybody. I'm not
like anybody else. Nobody cares what I do, and I don't care. I don't
care. Nobody ever takes care of me or knows when I need it. Well, I can
take care of myself. I'm going to