show you the Why Not Inn, but 'tis shut these two months or more, and Master Block away."
With that she turned towards the terrace, I following, but when we were outside of earshot from the door, I spoke in my own voice, quick but low,—
"Grace, it is I, John Trenchard, who am come to say good-bye before I leave these parts, and have much to tell that you would wish to hear. Are there any beside in the house with you?"
Now many girls who had suffered as she had, and were thus surprised, would have screamed, or perhaps swooned, but she did neither, only flushing a little and saying, also quick and low, "Let us go back to the house; I am alone."
So we went back, and after the door was bolted, took both hands and stood up face to face in the passage, looking into one another's eyes. I was tired with a long walk and sleepless night, and so full of joy to see her again that my head swam and all seemed a sweet dream. Then she squeezed my hands, and I knew 'twas real, and was for kissing her for very love; but she guessed what I would be at, perhaps, and cast my hands loose, drawing back a little, as if to see me better, and saying, "John, you have grown a man in these two months." So I did not kiss her.
But if it was true that I was grown a man, it was truer still that she was grown a woman, and as tall as I. And these recent sufferings had taken from her something of light and frolic girlhood, and left her with a manner more staid and sober. She was dressed in black, with longer skirts, and her hair caught up behind; and perhaps it was the mourning frock that made her
