"I haven't any choice, dear heart; there isn't any place for me here. I have thought it all over, and I know I am doing the wise thing,--I am quite sure of this! I shall write you of everything that concerns me!" he added hastily, as he heard the tread of the general's slippered feet in the hall. North released her hands as the general entered the room. Elizabeth sank back in her chair. Her father glanced sharply at them, and North turned toward him frankly. "I am leaving on the midnight train, General, and I must say good-by; I have to get a few things together for my trip!" General Herbert glanced again at Elizabeth, but her face was averted and he learned nothing from its expression. "So you are going away! Well, North, I hope you will have a pleasant trip,--better let me send you into town?" And he reached for the bell-rope. North shook his head. "I'll walk, thank you," he said briefly. In silence he turned to Elizabeth and held out his hand. For an instant she rested hers in it, a cold little hand that trembled; their eyes met in a brief glance of perfect understanding, and then North turned from her. The general followed him into the hall. "It's stopped snowing, and you will have clear starlight for your walk home,--the wind's gone down, too!" he said, as he opened the hall door. "Don't come any farther, General Herbert!" said North. But the general followed him into the stone arched vestibule. "It's a fine night for your walk,--but you're quite sure you don't want to be driven into town?" "No, no,--good night." And North held out his hand. "Good night." North went down the carriageway, and Herbert reëntered the house. North kept to the beaten path for a little while, then left it and tramped out across the fields until he came to a strip of woodland that grew along a stony hillside. He followed this ridge back a short distance and presently emerged upon a sloping meadow that overhung a narrow ravine. Not two hundred yards distant loomed Idle Hour, somber and dark and massive. He found a stump on the edge of the woods and brushed the snow from it, then drawing his overcoat closely about him, he sat down and lit his pipe. The windows of Idle Hour still showed their many lights. At his feet a thread-like stream, swollen by the recent rains, splashed and murmured ceaselessly. He sat there a long time silent and absorbed, watching the lights, until at last they vanished from the drawing-room and the library. Then other lights appeared behind curtained windows on the second floor. These in their turn were extinguished, and Idle Hour sank deeper into the shadows as the crescent moon slipped behind the horizon. "God bless her!" North said aloud.