She gave a little shiver, not with cold, and sat down beside where he lay. “I can’t sleep either,” she told him. “It’s beastly. Punch, I tell you what let’s do. Let’s go out for a ride on bicycles. There’s another one besides yours up in the old stable. You go ahead and get them, and I’ll meet you here by the corner of the veranda.” If he’d been feeling just right about Judy he’d have taken the thing as a lark and gone, but he didn’t feel right. Her mention of the corner of the veranda reminded him of something. “I don’t want to go up-stairs and get dressed,” he objected. “There were some people talking up there when I came down.” She seemed concerned by that and asked him quickly, “Who?” “I don’t know,” he told her. “They were in Bill Grant’s room.” She glanced sharply in the direction of the stairs as if she thought she’d heard something, but decided she hadn’t. “You don’t have to dress,” she pleaded. “Pajamas are all right, and I’ll lend you a pair of my sneakers.” “The whole house is locked up tight,” he objected. “We’d probably set off the burglar alarm if we tried to open a door or a window down-stairs.” “We can go out my window, can’t we?” That made the thing seem more fun, and he all but yielded; indeed he had moved to get up from the davenport, when he noticed something. “You’ve started to dress already, Judy,” he said. “Shirt and bloomers,” she admitted. “Yes, I was going out anyway. I was getting ready to when I heard you drop that pillow. I’ve left something I want, down on the veranda.” “That letter?” he asked. There was a breathless sort of silence between them. At last she said, “Don’t you care, Punch. You’ll understand some day, maybe.” He’d have gone with her then if he’d felt sure she wanted him, sure that the proposal of a ride with him hadn’t been a mere pretext of hers for an opportunity to recover her letter while he was up at the stable getting out the bicycles. It was with a very sore spirit that he lay down on the davenport again and let her go back to her own room and close the door after her without a word. He lay there straining his ears for a sound from her, but she must have been moving about as quietly as a ghost for he heard nothing. Perhaps he’d be able to hear her when she came in though, and she’d turn on the light, wouldn’t she, to read her letter by? But still there was nothing. The silence in the big house remained unbroken. He stood it as long as he could; then went to Judy’s door, opened it and after a glance about the deserted room, left it open. He’d know, now, when she came back, anyhow. After that once more he fell asleep, only to be wakened as before by a dream, or so he supposed at the moment, though he realized afterward that the soft closing of a door might have done it. He sat up, and now he heard footsteps shuffling along in felt slippers, and turning he saw a man in pajamas crossing the hall.