lie awake all night,
thinking that the gen--that Roger is drowned! Do you not think" (looking
round apprehensively) "that it is rising already? See how those boughs
are waving!"

"Not an atom!" reassuringly.

We both look for an instant at the silent flower-beds, at the sombre
bulk of the house.

"If they do not come to-morrow--" begins Frank.

"But they _will_!" cry I, petulantly; "they _must_! I cannot do without
them! I believe some people do not _mind_ being alone--not even in the
evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle. I dare
say _you_ do not; but I hate my own company; I have never been used to
it. I have always been used to a great deal of noise--_too_ much, I have
sometimes thought, but I am sure that I never shall think so again!"

"Well, but if they do not--"

"You have said that three times," I cry, irritably. "You seem to take a
pleasure in saying it. If they do not--well, what?"

"I will not say what I was going to say," he answers, shortly. "I shall
only get my nose bitten off if I do."

"Very well, do not!" reply I, with equal suavity.

We walk in silence toward the house, the wet grass is making my long
gown drenched and flabby. We have reached the garden-door whence I
issued, and by which I shall return.

"You must go now, I suppose," say I, reluctantly. "_You_ will be by
yourself too, will not you? Tell me" (speaking with lowered confidential
tone), "do _your_ chairs and tables ever make odd noises?"

"Awful!" he answers, laughing. "I can hardly hear myself speak for
them."

I laugh too.

"You might as well tell me before you go what the remark that I quenched
was? One always longs to hear the things that people are _going_ to say,
and do not! Have no fear! your nose is quite safe!"

"It is nothing much," he answers, with self-conscious stiffness, looking
down and poking about the little dark pebbles with his cane; "nothing
that you would care about."

"_Care about!_" echo I, leaning my back against the dusk house-wall, and
staring up at the sombre purple of the sky. "Well, no! I dare say not!
What _should_ I care to hear now? I am sure I should be puzzled to say!
But, as I have been so near it, I may as well be told."

"As you will!" he answers, with an air of affected carelessness. "It is
only that, if they _do not_ come to-morrow--"

"_Fourth time!_" interject I, counting on my fingers and smiling.

"If you _wish_--if you _like_--if it would be any com