* * * * *
Carnation slept in a little garret room with a gable window. She had chosen it, because she liked to look down on John Charles' fields and on the low place in the hedge where he always stood waiting for her.
The waning moon had risen late, and Carnation undressed without a candle. Having said her prayers, she stole into bed. But sleep would not come, and, her heart being right sore within her, the tears forced up her eyelids instead, as it is woman's safety that they should.
She lay and sobbed her heart out because John was going away. But through the tears that wet her pillow certain words she had been singing in the choir on Sunday forced themselves:—
"Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy cometh in the morning."
Nevertheless, Carnation must have sobbed herself to sleep, for it was nigh the dawn when she was awakened by something that flicked her lattice at regular intervals. It could not be a bird. It was too sharp and regular for that.
Could it be——?
Impossible!
He had never come before at such a time! If it were indeed he, there must be some terrible news to tell.
Carnation rose hastily, and threw a loose cloak about her shoulders. Then she went and opened the little French lattice with the criss-cross diamond panes. The dawn was coming slowly up out of the east, and the gray fields were turning rosy beneath her.