The ladder did not quite reach, and he had to stand on the top round and stretch for the sill. Then he pulled himself up, got one foot over, took a longer grip on the inside of the window, dragged the other foot up, as you would climb a high board fence, and was in the room with both feet. He leaned out and waved his hand. The top of the ladder silently swung out from the wall and swooped down in silence. Buckley turned and started across the room. He could feel the heavier atmosphere of indoors. A small clock was ticking somewhere. He detected a faint scent of mouchoir powder, and was just remarking to himself half consciously that it was just like that pretty-faced freshman, when from somewhere there came a soft voice, saying, "Is that you, dear?" Then, before all the blood near his backbone had time to freeze into little splinters of ice, he said, "Shsss," and stepped out of the moonlight and into the shadow, which is the best thing to do in case you are ever in a similar situation. Buckley's instinct made him do it. Across the silence the soft voice floated again and mingled with the moonlight, "Oh, I'm not asleep. But why did you stay so long, Guy, dear?" There was another sound. It was the squeaking of a bed-spring. Then, as Buckley's knees stiffened tight against each other, he spied coming toward him something white, with two black streaks hanging half way down, which as the thing came into the moonlight, he saw to be long braids of dark hair. Also, the light showed a tall, slender figure clothed in but one garment, which was white, and a face which was young and beautiful. Buckley had never seen a woman dressed that way before, and he closed his eyes. But he felt it coming nearer and nearer. He stood up perfectly straight and rigid in the darkness as two arms reached up and met about his neck. The arms were soft, and they smelt good. Buckley did not budge, and the soft voice began, in a sort of whisper, "You have not forgiven me yet?" It began to sob, and he felt the sobbing against his orange and black sweater. "You know I did not mean it. Won't you--forgive her? Won't you forgive--her?" And Buckley fully realized that he was in the thick of some romantically ghastly mistake, and that the only thing he could do to make it worse would be to speak or show his face. For fully half a minute he stood thus motionless, with his arms at his sides, gathering himself together, and trying to think what to do. And when he had made up his mind what to do he gritted his teeth and put both arms about the Clingy Thing. And when he had done that the Clingy Thing began to purr in soft, plaintive tones, which undoubtedly were sweet, and would probably have been appreciated by Buckley if he had not been so rattled. "Tell me that you _do_ forgive me. Say it with your own lips." Buckley said nothing with his lips. He was biting them. "Guy, speak to me!" Buckley didn't.