"Yes," he assented, but lingered for a moment, still looking at the trees as though reluctantly fascinated by them.
"Mother always said something would happen to that little girl," said Julia, with a grave and important look in her eyes.
"Why?" the boy asked, brusquely.
"Because of that mark—that mark she's got on her cheek."
"What rot!" he said, but he looked at his companion uneasily. The event of the evening had stirred the superstitious fears seldom hard to stir in children.
"People don't have those marks for nothing—so mother says." Other people, no wiser, said the same thing later.
"Rot!" Basil muttered again. "Oh, well, I must go."
She glanced at him timidly. "Just come as far as our door with me. I'm afraid."
"Afraid!" He smiled scornfully. "All right!"
He walked with her to the door of Woodbine Cottage, and waited till it closed behind her, performing the escort with a bold and lordly air. Left alone in the fast-darkening night, with nobody in sight, with no sound save the ceaseless voice of the angry wind essaying new mischief in the tops of the elm-trees, he stood for a moment listening fearfully. Then he laid his sturdy legs to the ground and fled for home, looking neither to right nor left till he reached the hospitable light of his father's study. The lad had been brave in face of the visible horror; fear struck him in the moment of Julia's talk about the mark on the child's cheek. Scornful and furious at himself, yet he was mysteriously afraid.