red.

"A little."

In his enraged disgust at not being able to procure a meal, Nick would
gladly have killed and cooked the owl.

"Are _you?_" Angela asked.

"Am I--what?"

"Hungry."

"Good heavens, no!"

Time passed vaguely, as time does pass in the dark, when there are no
means of counting the minutes. They could hear their watches ticking, if
they listened, but they never listened long enough to know how the seconds
went by. And all the matches were gone.

"It's like being lost in a cave, or a mine, or the catacombs," Angela
reflected aloud, "with your only candle burnt out. You can't tell whether
it's minutes or hours."

"It must be mighty tedious for you, I'm afraid; though Billy's sure to
come back soon," said Nick.

"No, somehow it isn't tedious," she answered as if puzzled. "I suppose I'm
rather excited. And you----"

"Well, I suppose I'm rather excited, too," said Nick, in his low, quiet
voice, that did not betray what he felt. Angela's voice told more of what
went on in her soul. It was, as Nick often thought, a voice of lights and
shadows.

At last--what time it might be they could not tell--there came a sound of
a key turning in a lock. The door opened, and a yellow ray from a lantern
streamed into the church, making the owl in its corner flutter wildly.
Billy's face showed in a frame of dull gold, as he peered about, blinking.

Then, for the first time, Angela knew that Nick had been angry with the
chauffeur. There was something in his tone as he said, "Well! So you have
come!" which suggested that, if she had not been there, the "forest
creature" might have added some strong and primitive language.

"Couldn't help it, Mr. Hilliard. I done the best I could," Billy explained
hastily. "When I got out there, I was up against a tough proposition, and
I guess it would have been tougher yet if I'd stopped to do much
thinking."

"I don't know what your proposition was. But seems to me if it had been
mine I'd have found time to yell: 'All right--coming as soon as I can!' as
I passed the open window," Nick remarked dryly. "Mrs. May'll think we're a
nice lot."

But Billy broke into a flood of explanations, too proud to excuse himself
to Hilliard, after being, as he thought, unjustly reproached, yet willing
to justify himself in the eyes of the lady.

He had dropped from the window, he said, just in time to see a dim
figure, which looked like that of a Padre, disappearing in the distance.
He ha