Christopher and Nancy sat in two deck chairs, her frock and shoes and hair all looking equally silvery in the moonlight, and they were talking in low, happy voices. “_That’s_ all right,” I said, and Mary agreed. Perhaps she was conscious, as I certainly was, of something rather perfunctory in the tone of her assent. She added after a moment: “It really is quite plain sailing for them, isn’t it?” “Unless you call Nancy’s father a rock in the way.” “Nancy isn’t a Victorian schoolgirl. I don’t think they have much to contend with.” “So much the better.” “Oh yes,” said Mary, her tone rather enigmatical. Then she suddenly burst out: “It’s all so upside down! Christopher and Nancy are dears, both of them, but you know as well as I do that they are neither of them people of tremendous significance. Yet one wishes them well and wants to see it all happily settled. But those other two people--and _they_ are _real_ people, both of them--are outside the law, and there’s no possible happy ending in sight, anywhere, for them. And--one doesn’t know what to wish.” It was unlike Mary to be vehement. Although she had not raised her voice at all, she had spoken with great intensity. I put my hand on her arm. “Look!” Two people were coming down the path, where no Japanese lanterns had found their way, but which was crossed by a clear patch of white moonlight. “Not Sallie, is it?” The dress was almost Sallie’s, and the coins on it clinked together slightly, and the long gauze veil hung in motionless folds in the unusual stillness of the night air--but it wasn’t Sallie--of course. Sallie is less tall than Mrs. Harter and her movements have the lightness and abruptness of extreme youth. Mrs. Harter’s way of walking was unmistakable, and even in the moonlight Bill’s red hair was easily recognizable. They were walking very slowly, not speaking. He was looking at her, whose head was bent. Just as I realized that they could not see us, in the dark little summerhouse, Mrs. Harter stopped dead and looked up at him. Mary sprang to her feet with a decided movement and at the same moment we both heard Diamond Harter’s voice very distinctly, that voice that Bill Patch had called a “carrying” voice. “To-morrow, when we go up Loman Hill to the crossroads,” she said. Almost before she had finished speaking--but not quite--she heard us move; and she and Bill walked on, out of the patch of white light into the darkness of the overhanging syringa bushes. Was it a tryst, or a promise, or a decision? I have never known, and neither Mary nor I spoke about what we had heard as we went back to the house again.