orse than them all, the
certainty that Jeremy was dead. Ridiculous pictures passed before her,
of Jeremy hanging from a tree, Jeremy lying frozen in the wood,
the faithful Hamlet dead at his side, Jeremy stung by an adder and
succumbing to his horrible tortures, Jeremy surrounded by violent men,
who snatched Hamlet from him, beat him on the head and left him for dead
on the ground.

She passed what seemed to her hours of torture under these horrible
imaginings, tired out, almost out of her mind with the hysteria of her
loneliness, her imagination and her conscience; she passed into a kind
of apathy of unhappiness, thinking now only of Jeremy, longing for him,
beseeching him to come back, telling the empty moonlit room that she
never meant it; that she would do everything he wanted if only he came
back to her; that she was a wicked girl; that she would never be wicked
again.... And she took her punishment alone.

After endless ages of darkness and terror and misery she heard
voices--then HIS voice! She jumped out of the wardrobe and listened.
Yes; it WAS his voice. She pushed back the door, crept down the passage,
and came suddenly upon a little group, with Jeremy in its midst, crowded
together at the top of the stairs. Jeremy was wrapped up in his father's
heavy coat, and looked very small and impish as he peered from out of
it. He was greatly excited, his eyes shining, his mouth smiling, his
cheeks flushed.

His audience consisted of Helen, Mrs. Cole, Miss Jones, and Aunt Amy. He
described to them how he had run along the road "for miles and miles
and miles," how at last he had found the farm, had rung the bell,
and inquired, and discovered Hamlet licking up sugary tea in the farm
kitchen; there had then been a rapturous meeting, and he had boldly
declared that he could find his way home again without aid. "They wanted
me to be driven home in their trap, but I wasn't going to have that.
They'd been at the fair all day, and didn't want to go out again. I
could see that." So he and Hamlet started gaily on their walk home, and
then, in some way or another, he took the wrong turn, and suddenly they
were in Mellot Wood. "It was dark as anything, you know, although there
was going to be a moon. We couldn't see a thing, and then I got loster
and loster. At last we just sat under a tree. There was nothing more to
do!" Then, apparently, Jeremy had slept, and had, finally, been found in
the proper romantic manner by Jim and h