Judith seemed to have heard what he said to her from far away, and to be only faintly puzzled by it, not interested or touched. Her eyes kept their secrets under his questioning eyes. They defied him. She was not like his little lost sweet-heart found again, but a stranger and an enemy, one of the people he hated, people who intrigued and lied, but were out of his reach and above him, and were all his enemies.
The boy's world was upsetting. Nothing that had happened to him in that room or ever had happened to him before had shaken it like that minute of doubt that he lived through in silence, with the strain of it showing in his pale face, and Charlie's voice echoing half heard in his ears. He drew back from Judith slightly as they stood. He was trembling. Judith's face was a blur of white before his eyes, then he could not see it—and then, as suddenly as it had come, his black minute was over.
"Take me away. I don't want to stay where he is any more. Is he dead?" Judith said, and she slipped her hand into Neil's.
Judith's voice was as lifeless and strange as before, and the hand in his was cold, but it was Judith's own little clinging hand, and the boy's hand closed on it tight. He stood still, feeling it in his, and holding it as if the poor little cold hand could give him back all his strength again. He looked round him at the dim room and its motionless owner and Charlie as if he were seeing them clearly for the first time. He was not angry with Charlie any longer. He was not angry at all. He drew a deep, sobbing breath of relief, dropped his dark head suddenly and awkwardly toward Judith's unresponsive hand and kissed it, and then very gently let it go.
"Judith, you're you," he said, "just you, no matter what happens, and nothing else matters; nothing in the world, as long as you are you."
Judith only smiled her faint half smile at him, as if she guessed that some crisis had come and passed, but did not greatly care.
"Take me away," she repeated patiently. "I thought there'd be other people here. He said so. But I've come here alone before, only he was different to-day. He was different."
"Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I won't ever ask you again. I never ought to have asked you. It's all right, dear. It's all right."
"I didn't know people were like that—anybody, ever. I just didn't know——"
"Don't, dear," said Neil sharply. The small, bewildered voice that held more wonder and pain than her words broke off, but her bewildered eyes still wondered and grieved. Neil's arms went out to her suddenly and drew her close, holding her gently, and hiding her small, pathetic face against his shoulder.