Mr. Hurd emitted a dry chuckle.
"For the honor of the family, Charlie, I'll never tell," he said.
It was dark when at last Miss Maitland, under the escort of Smith, started homeward toward Deerfield Street. And even then, not so directly homeward lay their course as the hour might have warranted. By an impulse which neither resisted, their footsteps turned southeastward toward the place where they had first viewed the land of the fire's reaping. On the steel bridge over the railroad tracks they found themselves at last.
"We didn't really intend to come here, did we?" asked the girl, with a smile.
"Somebody must have intended it," argued her companion; "although I confess that my part in it seemed entirely a passive one. Still, it is a good place to come, excepting for the cinders which fly into one's eyes—as one did then."
Northward, under the pale light of the stars, the barren acres stretched away till they reached the point where the builded city recommenced. The wind, fallen to a breeze, brought still a faint hint of smoke out of the ground, as though in insistent reminiscence of the fire's breath. On the edge of this zone gleamed the city's lights, and Smith was vaguely reminded of the lights on the Jersey shore as he could see them from his window.
"Do you remember the night you showed me the lights of New York?" asked
Helen, softly.
"I shall never stop remembering it," he answered. "Some day, when I get to be so valuable or valueless that I can be spared from the Guardian, we will go and see the lights of all the other cities of the world. Shall we?"
"There will be none like yours—like ours."
"As there are no lights for me like those within your eyes."