Once or twice it was not until evening that we could steal "off bounds," and then we would make straight for the little store, as if we knew that, if we did not hurry, it would be closed for the night. And we would have only a few hurried words, but laughing, with the girl--and she would look up at Sydney with a light in those big eyes of hers that I had never seen before in any woman's. She left her counter, once, and walked all the way home with us; and I saw, in the blue of the gloaming, that her hand was tightly clasped in Sydney's, and that he whispered things to her under his breath, as soon as I was gone a little way ahead of them, and that they both laughed--and she looked up at him as a dumb animal to its master. She came as far as the school gate; and after I had gotten within, they stood for a moment together--and I thought I could hear the sound of kissing. It was only then that I began to be troubled. Sydney, who was a lieutenant in the cadet battalion, had more privileges than I. He could leave the premises when he pleased. He never had to sign the big book in the hall when leaving and arriving back. He needed never to give account of what he did "off bounds." It was an easy matter for him--and there were many times, now, that he went off alone. No one knew why he used to take that little country road that led up the hill towards a stupid old country store. No one, that is, but me. At first I did not think much of the girl's side of it. I was bitterly disappointed that some one else had come between my friend and me. I was jealous of all the time he spent with her, of the hours of reading and walking and jesting that once were mine--and of which the lure of her had robbed me. But once, when we were at the store, and I stood aside from them, watching the humped back of her old father, bent over his card table, and saw the feeble shaking of his hand, I began to comprehend what it might mean to him if anything should happen. Not that I knew what might happen. I was still very young--but I felt the chill foreboding of tragedy lurking somewhere in the background of it all. The dingy little shop, with its flyspecked glass cases and its dusty rows of untouched stock; the lights dimmed and blackened by clusters of whirling insects; the old father with his bent back--and the two of them standing there and laughing, gazing into each other's faces with the look of youth and the Springtime. And I went out quickly and stumbled my way home alone, leaving Sydney to follow after. When Sydney came in, after taps, I stole from my bed to his to speak to him of it. But the words would not form themselves suitably, and he laughed at my poor stammerings, and sent me off to bed again.