"I'm not nearly so beastly now, Johnnie," she said in a whisper. "You'll find that out some day, perhaps, if you're very patient. Good night, Johnnie, dear. Don't forget to-morrow."
She flitted away into the darkness, and John, releasing his hold on the bank and starting up as if he had had an electric shock, was carried out into mid-stream. He was tingling from head to foot. It could not have happened, of course, but for a moment he had suddenly received the extraordinary impression that Pat had kissed him.
"Pat!" he called, choking.
There came no answer out of the night—only the sleepy chuckling of the Skirme as it pottered on to tell its old friend the Severn about it.
"Pat!"
John drove the paddle forcefully into the water, and the Skirme, ceasing to chuckle, uttered two loud gurgles of protest as if resenting treatment so violent. The nose of the boat bumped against the bank, and he sprang ashore. He stood there, listening. But there was nothing to hear. Silence had fallen on an empty world.
A little sound came to him in the darkness. The Skirme was chuckling again.
CHAPTER IX
I