“Really, if you’re so nervous, you oughtn’t to come here.”
“I never will again—not alone, I mean.”
Charlie had breasted the hill with such goodwill that they were already at the road.
“And you’re really going back?” she asked.
“Oh, just for a few minutes. I left my book in the temple—I was reading there. She’s not due for half an hour yet, you know.”
“What—what happens if you see her?”
“Oh, you die,” answered Charlie. “Goodnight;” and with a smile and a nod he ran down the hill towards the Pool.
Miss Bushell, cavalierly deserted, made her way home at something more than her usual rate of speed. She had never believed in that nonsense, but there was certainly something white at that window—something white that moved. Under the circumstances, Charlie really might have seen her home, she thought, for the wood-fringed road was gloomy, and dusk coming on apace. Besides, where was the hardship in being her escort?
Doubtless none, Charlie would have answered, unless a man happened to have other fish to fry. The pace at which the canoe crossed the Pool and brought up at its old moorings witnessed that he had no leisure to spend on Miss Bushell. Leaping out, he ran up the stops into the temple, crying in a loud whisper:
“She’s gone!”