As far as she could remember, she had never talked to the Chapin boy and had not seen him very often. She recalled him as a thin gangling youth, with a prominent Adam’s apple and shallow, frightened blue eyes. And now he was at home again with a disgrace like that. “Oh, the poor boy!” she thought again, horrified at the spiritual collapse that would make one’s pride and reserve go down and leave one exposed before the whole world. “It’s just what I might do if I were a man--just the way I might have acted. Oh, I’m glad I’m not a man!” she told herself. Suddenly in the stillness she heard a sharp sound in the hall. It startled her so that her hands on the knitting-needles jumped together. “Oh, what is that?” she thought. She listened rigidly a minute, and heard a creaking on the stairway. With an effort, she wrenched herself up, and stepping to the door pressed the electric button. As the light flashed up in the hall, she saw Mr. Bixby’s white face looking down at her from the stairway. “Oh, I scared you,” he said confusedly. “Don’t be scared; it’s just me. I didn’t go to frighten you.” Julie looked up at him. “_You?_” she cried uncertainly. “Oh, it’s you!” They stared at each other a moment, and then she turned back into her sitting-room. “Well,” she said, relieved, “I’m glad it’s you. I _was_ scared. I didn’t know what to think.” He came down the stairs, still apologizing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t go to frighten you. I was upstairs all alone--my wife’s gone to the show with Mis’ Johnson--and I got to wondering where that door went to, an’ then, just out of curiosity, I hunted round till I found a closet-key that fitted it. But I’m mighty sorry I give you a start.” He had come into the little sitting-room now and was leaning over the back of the red-plush rocker, looking down at her. She had returned to her knitting under the light. “Oh, it’s all right; it isn’t anything. I just get scared so easy,” she told him, still with a little tremor in her voice. “Yes,” he said, “I know. Some of us do.” He still lingered, leaning on his arms over the back of the chair and watching her knit. “Making a sweater?” he asked. “Yes, for the Red Cross.” She spread it out for him to see. “Well, the feller that gets it’ll be lucky,” he said. Still he did not go; and in a moment he spoke again, feeling his way uncertainly. “Speaking about being scared--I mean, you said you got scared easy?” “Yes, I do,” she answered, to help him out as he hesitated. “I’m awful timid; sudden noises always make me jump.” “Yes, I know. And I was thinking how it was with that boy.” “What boy?” she asked. “The feller they had to send back from camp. Chapin, I think was the name. You heard about him?” He waited, looking down at her. Suddenly Julie comprehended a strained anxiety in his tone, and her heart began to beat quickly. “Yes, I heard,” she said, and kept her eyes down on her knitting now, not to look too closely at him.