"Of course, I can't let you walk home by yourself in this," he said, his assurance somehow increased by her fluttering nervousness. "Don't be a silly girl. What are a few hundred yards to me one way or another?" "Oh well!" Caroline suddenly gave way, feeling she had been making ridiculously too much of it. "Must be after eleven," she murmured. "The Committee extended the time to eleven. I expect they'll wish they hadn't, when it was such a cold night." "I suppose they've been out after eleven before." But she knew by his tone he was not thinking of what he was saying. All that they had really to say to each other seemed to be passing through the electric current which passed between his strong, warm fingers and the tingling flesh of her arm--though they actually did discourse about Mr. Graham, and the balloons, and the financial disappointment which the Gala must have been to the Committee. But near the gate of the Cottage Caroline resolutely withdrew her arm. "Please don't come up the drive. I'd rather you didn't. Good night!" She spoke in a low voice, hurriedly. "Sure you're all right?" he said. "Yes. Yes. Good night," she repeated. He let her go a few steps, then she suddenly felt an arm of iron about her, the brief touch of his lips on her cheek--heard his voice saying with a queer accent of triumph: "I knew it would be like that!" He was gone, leaving her standing there. He had satisfied the urge of a burning curiosity which had assailed him first as she sat in the window of Laura's drawing-room, and he noticed the magnolia texture of her healthy pallor and the little golden powdering of freckles on her nose. He had fought against that recollection. He had been ashamed to have begun it there. Now as he strode away into the dark he swore to himself that he was satisfied; he would never let himself go again; that he would be faithful to Laura in thought and deed. As for Caroline--well, he remembered that she had walked out with a young man named Wilf; probably with others before that. A kiss more or less was not a serious thing to a girl of that sort; though he felt sorry, all the same, that he had been betrayed into giving it. * * * * * * Caroline made her way up the dark drive, and on reaching the door she felt in her coat pocket for the latch-key. It was not there. Then she sought hastily in her other pocket and could not find it. Evidently she had dropped it on the road somewhere, but no one could see a small article like that now, even if it lay on the pathway.