As we stood facing each other I was aware of some new difference in her. Perhaps her short outing skirt of dark blue had changed her; and yet in our tramps through the woods and our excursions in the canoe she had worn the same or similar costumes. She hesitated a moment, leaning against the railing and tapping the floor with her boot; then she said gravely, half questioningly, as though to herself: "He has gone away; you are quite sure that he has gone away?" "Your father is probably in New York," I answered, surprised at the question. "I do not expect him back at once." "If he should come back--" she began. "He will undoubtedly return; there is no debating that." "If he comes back there will be trouble, worse than anything that has happened. You can't understand what his return will mean to us--to me." "You must not worry about that; you must trust me to take care of that when he comes. 'Sufficient unto the day' must be your watchword. I saw Gillespie to-night." "Gillespie?" she repeated with unfeigned surprise. "That was capitally acted!" I laughed. "I wish I knew that he meant nothing more to you than that!" I added seriously. She colored, whether with anger or surprise at my swift change of tone, I did not know. Then she said very soberly: "Mr. Gillespie is nothing to me whatever." "I thank you for that!" "Thank me for nothing, Mr. Donovan. And now good night. You are not to follow me--" "Oh, surely to the gate!" "Not even to the gate. My ways are very mysterious. By day I am one person; by night quite another. And if you should follow me--" "To my own gate!" I pleaded. "It's only decent hospitality!" I urged. "Not even to the Gate of Dreams!" "But in trying to get back to the school you have to pass the guards; you will fail at that some time!" "No! I whisper an incantation, and lo! they fall asleep upon their spears. And I must ask you--" "Keep asking, for to ask you must stay!" "--please, when I meet you in daytime do not refer to anything that we may say when we meet at night. You have proved me at every point--even to this spot of ink on my forehead," and she put her forefinger upon the peak. "I am Helen Holbrook; but as--what shall I say?--oh, yes!" she went on lightly--"as a psychological fact, I am very different at night from anything I ever am in daylight. And to-morrow morning, when you meet me with Aunt Pat in the garden, if you should refer to this meeting I shall never appear to you again, not even through the Gate of Dreams. Good night!" "Good night!" I clasped her hand for an instant, and she met my eyes with a laughing challenge. "When shall I see you again--this you that is so different from the you of daylight?" She caught her hand away and turned to go, but paused at the steps. "When the new moon hangs, like a little feather, away out yonder, I shall be looking at it from the stone seat on the bluff; do you think you can remember?"