"What did you do?" He grimaced. "I don't remember. Why talk about it? It wasn't much. Cakes and ale--_joie de vivre_--chimes at midnight--same old song." He laughed. "I gather that you've been rusticated, too." Hagar winced. "Don't!... Let's laugh about other things. You'll break your family's hearts at Hawk Nest." "Old Miss said in a letter which mother showed me that you were breaking hers. What kind of a fellow is he, Hagar?--Like me?" Hagar looked at him gravely. "Not in the least. How long are you going to stay at Hawk Nest?" "Oh, a month! I'm coming to see you every other day." "Are you?" "I am. If I could draw I'd like to draw you just as you look now--half marquise, half dryad--sitting before your own front door!" "Well, you can't draw," said Hagar. "And it's getting cold, and the dryad is going home." "All right," said Ralph. "I'm going, too. I've come to spend the night." Leading his horse, he walked beside her. In the green lane, a wintry sunset glory over every slope and distant wood, the house between its black cedars rising before them, he halted a moment. "I haven't seen you since August when I rode over to tell Gilead Balm good-bye. You've changed. You've 'done growed.'" "That may be. I've grown to-day." "Since I came?" "No. Before you came. For the first time I suppose in your life, grandmother is going to be sorry to see you. She worships you." "She was sorry to see you, too, wasn't she? It's rather nice to be companions out of favour." "Oh!" cried Hagar. "You are and always were the most provoking twister of the truth! I want to say to you that I do not consider that ours are similar cases! And now, if you please, that is the last word I am going to say to you on such a matter." "All right!" said Ralph. "I was curious, of course. But I acknowledge your right to shut me up." They passed through the home gate,--where a boy took his horse,--and went up the hill together. Dilsey was lighting the lamps. As they entered the hall Miss Serena came out of the library--Miss Serena looking curiously agitated. "Dilsey, hasn't Miss Hagar come in yet?... Oh, Hagar! I've been searching the place for you--Why, Ralph! Where on earth did you come from? Has the University burned down? Have you got a holiday?" The library door was ajar. The Colonel's voice made itself heard from within. "Serena! Is that Hagar? Tell her to come here." The three entered the room together. There was a slight clamour of surprise and greeting from its occupants for Ralph, but it died down in the face, as it were, of things of greater importance. "What's the matter?" he asked, bringing up at last by Captain Bob in the background. "A letter from Medway," answered the other. "_Shh!_"