CHAPTER XVI.
ON THE WAY HOME.
NOT until the party was breaking up, and he saw Sammy in the doorway, did Young Matt go back to the house.
When they had ridden again out of the circle of light, and the laughter and shouting of the guests was no longer heard, Sammy tried in vain to arouse her silent escort, chatting gaily about the pleasures of the evening. But all the young man's reserve had returned. When she did force him to speak, his responses were so short and cold that at last the girl, too, was silent. Then, man-like, he wished she would continue talking.
By the time they reached Compton Ridge the moon was well up. For the last two miles Sammy had been watching the wavering shafts of light that slipped through tremulous leaves and swaying branches. As they rode, a thousand fantastic shapes appeared and vanished along the way, and now and then as the sound of their horses' feet echoed through the silent forest, some wild thing in the underbrush leaped away into the gloomy depth.
Coming out on top of the narrow ridge, the brown
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