ll have it, Sammy, to keep. Just listen, and
I'll read it."

Sammy listened with his mouth and eyes open, but when she had done he
shook his head. "You didn't make that up yourself," he said decidedly.

"O Sammy! yes, I did," Beth protested, taken aback and much pained.

"No, I don't believe you," said Sammy. "You got it out of a book.
You're always trying to stuff me up."

"I'm not stuffing you, Sammy," said Beth, suddenly flaming. "I made it
myself, every word of it. I tell you it came to me. It's my own.
_You've got to believe it._"

Sammy looked about him. There was no escape by the door, because that
led into the house, and Beth was between him and the window, with her
brown hair dishevelled, and her big eyes burning.

"Well," he said, a politic desire to conciliate struggling with an
imperative objection to be stuffed, "of course you made it yourself if
you say so. But it's all rot anyway."

The words slipped out unawares, and the moment he uttered them he
ducked his head: but nothing happened. Then he looked up at Beth, and
found her gazing hard at him, and as she did so the colour gradually
left her cheeks and the light went out of her eyes. Slowly she
gathered up her papers and put them into the hole in the roof. Then
she sat on one of the steps which led down into the room, but she said
nothing.

Sammy sat still in a tremor until the silence became too oppressive to
be borne; then he fidgeted, then he got up, and looked longingly
towards the window.

"I shall be late," he ventured.

Beth made no sign.

"When shall I see you again?" he recommenced, deprecatingly. "Will you
be at the back-gate to-morrow?"

"No," she said shortly. "It's too cold to wait for you."

"Then how shall I see you?" he asked, with a blank expression.

Beth reflected. "Oh, just whistle as you pass," she said at last, in
an offhand way, "and I'll come out if I feel inclined."

* * * * *

The next evening Mrs. Caldwell was taking her accustomed nap after
dinner in her arm-chair by the fire in the dining-room, and Beth was
sitting at the table dreaming, when she was suddenly startled by a
long, loud, shrill whistle. Another and another of the most piercing
quality followed in quick succession. Swiftly but cautiously she
jumped up, and slipped into the drawing-room, which was all in
darkness. There were outside shutters to the lower windows, but the
drawing-room ones were not closed, so she