'Yes, Honor, leaning against the gate. If there had been anything to sit on I should have seated myself. My fingers are numb. I must thaw them at your coals.'
He went to the fire and held his hands in the glow. 'Honor!' he said, 'you have been crying. I see the glitter of the tears on your cheeks.'
'Yes, I have been crying—not much.'
'What made you cry?'
'Girl's troubles,' she answered.
'Girl's troubles! What are they?'
'Little matters to those they do not concern. Here is a low stool on which the children sit by the heart. I will take it out and set it under the hedge. We can sit on it and talk together awaiting the dog.'
'What is the time, Honor? Is the clock right? Eleven! I will wait till after midnight and then go. He will not come to-night if he does not come before that. He will have gone hunting elsewhere. Perhaps he remembers that you scared him last night.' Honor carried out a low bench, and placed it near the gate under the hedge where a thorn tree overhung.
'We shall do well here,' said Hillary. 'The dog will not see us, and we shall know he is in the field by the fright of the sheep.'
He seated himself on the bench and Honor did the same, at a distance from him—as far away as the bench permitted. She had thrown the potato sack over her head, and wore it as a hood; it covered her shoulders as well, and shaded her face. The dew was falling heavily, the meadow in the moon was white with it, as though frosted, and through the white sprinkled grass went dark tracks, as furrows, where the sheep had trodden and dispersed the sparkling drops.