"No; do give me credit for that!" she mocked. "But I shall not disturb your guards, and I shall not distress Aunt Pat by making a row in the garden trying to run your pickets. I want you to stay here five minutes--count them honestly--until I have had time to get back in my own fashion. Is it a bargain?" She put out her hand as she turned away--her left hand. As my fingers closed upon it an instant the emerald ring touched my palm.
"I should think you would not wear that ring," I said, detaining her hand, "it is too like hers; it is as though you were plighted to her by it."
She choked and caught her breath sharply and her hand flew to her face.
"She gave it to my mother, long ago," she said, and ran away down the path toward the school. A bit of gravel loosened by her step slipped after her to a new resting-place; then silence and the night closed upon her.
I threw myself upon the bench and waited, marveling at her. If I had not touched her hand; if I had not heard her voice; if, more than all, I had not talked with her of her father, of Miss Pat, of intimate things which no one else could have known, I should not have believed that I had seen Helen Holbrook face to face.
The night is still, the moon looks kind, The dew hangs jewels in the heath, An ivy climbs across thy blind, And throws a light and misty wreath.
The dew hangs jewels in the heath, Buds bloom for which the bee has pined; I haste along, I quicker breathe, The night is still, the moon looks kind.
Buds bloom for which the bee has pined, The primrose slips its jealous sheath, As up the flower-watched path I wind And come thy window-ledge beneath.
The primrose slips its jealous sheath,-- Then open wide that churlish blind, And kiss me through the ivy wreath! The night is still, the moon looks kind. --Edith M. Thomas.
On my way home through St. Agatha's I stopped to question the two guards. They had heard nothing, had seen nothing. How that girl had passed them I did not know. I scanned the main building, where she and Miss Pat had two rooms, with an intervening sitting-room, but all was dark. Miss Helen Holbrook was undeniably a resourceful young woman of charm and wit, and I went on to Glenarm House with a new respect for her cleverness.