A sense of softness come over Jack. This girl, like himself, was alone. And the feeling that she, as he, was friendless, made him wish he could creep in unseen and sit by her side. He would say nothing, he had nothing that he could say, save this, 'Winefred――I believe in you.' Every now and then her head sank, and the light no longer fell over it, but bathed her glossy dark hair, and then for a moment her chin rested on her heaving bosom. By an effort she reared herself, looked quickly round at the dancers, fearful lest weakness should have been detected, and with defiance in her glance. All at once, as though consciousness came over her that she was observed, she moved uneasily on the bench and looked straight before her at the slot through which Jack was looking. No dancers at the moment intervened, and she saw him. Her eyes fell at once. Jack could not be sure whether she had recognised him, but that she had seen that some one was watching her was obvious from her movements. He drew back, and again was the unseen hearer of a conversation relative to Winefred. 'Bill,' said a girl, 'I have caught you sidling towards that stuck-up minx of a Marley, or, as she is pleased to call herself, Holwood. I know you want to make up to _Miss_ Holwood because of her hundreds of pounds, and to be off with Susie Finch.' 'It is not so. I swear to you it is not so. You attack me because you are disappointed that Jack Rattenbury is not here.' 'It is an untruth, a wicked untruth. What care I for Jack Rattenbury? He is too saucy to speak to such as I――with all his learning he had of the curate.' Then they passed away to patch up their lover's quarrel elsewhere. Jack pressed to the window slit again. And again he looked across the barn at Winefred, and once more their eyes met. Her lips contracted, her brows knit, she started from the bench, and strode across the floor to the barn door. He turned, thrust back the valve, and dashed away into the darkness. CHAPTER XXVI A THORN BOUGH Jack trudged down hill. The night was not dark. Mrs. Jose had purposely chosen one on which the almanack informed her there would be a moon, so that the young people might not have to return in the dark. She was a considerate woman in all that she undertook. But nearly all those who were assembled in her barn came from Axmouth, and would go home together. 'However,' said Mrs. Jose, 'a moon won't hurt and is advisable.' Aloft great white clouds were drifting like icebergs in a polar sea, but below there was little wind. Occasionally, when one of these clouds came before the moon it partially eclipsed it, but was itself transformed into a luminous haze, with a halo about it.