“Look!”
Two people were coming down the path, where no Japanese lanterns had found their way, but which was crossed by a clear patch of white moonlight.
“Not Sallie, is it?”
The dress was almost Sallie’s, and the coins on it clinked together slightly, and the long gauze veil hung in motionless folds in the unusual stillness of the night air—but it wasn’t Sallie—of course.
Sallie is less tall than Mrs. Harter and her movements have the lightness and abruptness of extreme youth.
Mrs. Harter’s way of walking was unmistakable, and even in the moonlight Bill’s red hair was easily recognizable.
They were walking very slowly, not speaking. He was looking at her, whose head was bent.
Just as I realized that they could not see us, in the dark little summerhouse, Mrs. Harter stopped dead and looked up at him. Mary sprang to her feet with a decided movement and at the same moment we both heard Diamond Harter’s voice very distinctly, that voice that Bill Patch had called a “carrying” voice.
“To-morrow, when we go up Loman Hill to the crossroads,” she said.
Almost before she had finished speaking—but not quite—she heard us move; and she and Bill walked on, out of the patch of white light into the darkness of the overhanging syringa bushes.