“I had to let you in for it, a little,” she said. “I told mother that as soon as we were married, we would let you know where we were, and that if she wanted us to come back, she was to call up your house and find out.” “Where _will_ you be?” I asked. Judy didn’t answer. She left my chair again and walked away, but not, this time, to where her lover was standing; there was a moment before she turned and faced me. “Do you _want_ to get into this?” she demanded of me. She was intensely serious now. “It will be beastly for you. Mother will hate you, whether the plan works and they save their faces or not. We didn’t want to do it this way, you know. At least, Bill didn’t. We wouldn’t have done it if we could have helped it. I can’t marry any one else but Bill--not now, and they--they haven’t left us any way but this. But you don’t deserve to be--to be made the goat.” I’d never seen tears in Judy’s eyes before, but they were there now, and they brought a responsive blur into my own. “I shall enjoy being the goat,” I said, “and I’ll double in any other useful part that you can assign to me. How about it? Will you be married here?” Judy heaved a deep sigh of assent. “In this nice little house,” she said. She turned to her lover. “It’s all right now, Bill.” Bill Grant came over and shook hands with me. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is, sir,” he said. “I didn’t want to take Judy on a wild goose chase through the middle of the night looking for a license clerk and a justice of the peace. I wanted it known where she was. If I may leave her here with you, I’ll drive over now to the county-seat and get a license as soon as I can wake up the clerk.” “I’ll keep Judy for you,” I said. “But there’s no use in your starting yet. It’s only a twenty-mile drive, and you can’t rout that man out in the middle of the night. Sit down and be comfortable.” “Do you keep anything to eat in your house?” Judy asked. “I’m hungry, now that I can think about something besides eloping with Bill.” I told her where to find the ice-box, and cautioned her to go quietly in order not to waken Donovan. Bill went with her, and they came back in a few minutes with three-quarters of a pie, and a bottle of milk. We set out the feast on the little table beside my couch, and I watched them eat, mercifully refraining from asking any questions. These babes in the wood were as hungry as the wolves that would have devoured them. But when we’d finished, and when Bill Grant and I had lighted our pipes, I asked, “Now, haven’t I earned the story for my collection? When did you two youngsters meet for the first time? Yesterday afternoon?” Judy curled up on my couch, happy as a well-fed kitten. “Tell him about it, Bill,” she said. “I think I’m going to sleep. The whole works, you know,” she continued. And by way of launching him she spoke once more to me. “Has mother told you about my horrible past? Well, Bill’s it!” CHAPTER XII AN EXCURSION INTO ARCADY