Juliet stood quite still looking down at the bent grey head.  “I wonder,” she said slowly, “I wonder—­if Dick—­in his heart—­thinks the same!”

CHAPTER IX

THE ANSWER

The August dusk had deepened into night when the open car from the Court pulled up at the schoolhouse gate.  The school had closed for the summer holidays a day or two before.  No lights shone in either building.

“Do you mind going in alone?” whispered Jack.  “I can’t show here.  But I’ll wait inside the park-gates to take you back.”

“You needn’t wait,” Juliet said.  “I shall spend the night at the Court—­unless I am wanted here.”

She descended with the words.  She had never liked Jack Green, and she was thankful that the rapid journey was over.  She heard him shoot up the drive as she went up the schoolhouse path.

In the dark little porch she hesitated.  The silence was intense.  Then, as she stood in uncertainty, from across the bare playground there came a call.

“Juliet!”

She turned swiftly.  He was standing in the dark doorway of the school.  The vague light of the rising moon gleamed deathly on his face.  He did not move to meet her.

She went to him, reached out hands to him that he did not take, and clasped him by the shoulders.  “Oh, you poor boy!”

His arms held her close for a moment or two, then they relaxed.

“I don’t know why I sent for you,” he said.

“You didn’t send for me, Dick,” she made gentle answer.  “But I think you wanted me all the same.”

He groaned.  “Wanted you!  I’ve—­craved for you.  You told the squire?”

“Yes.  He said—­”

He broke in upon her with fierce bitterness.  “He was pleased of course!  I knew he would be.  That’s why I couldn’t send the message to him.  It had to be you.”

“Dick!  Dick!  He wasn’t pleased!  You don’t know what you’re saying.  He was most terribly sorry.”  She put her arm through his with a very tender gesture.  “Won’t you take me inside and tell me all about it?” she said.

He gave a hard shudder.  “I don’t know if I can, Juliet.  It’s been—­so awful.  He suffered—­so infernally.  The doctor didn’t want to give him morphia—­said it would hasten the end.”  He stamped in a sort of impotent frenzy.  “I stood over him and made him.  It was just what I wanted to do.  It was—­it was—­beyond endurance.”

“Oh, my dear!” she said.

He put his hands over his face.  “Juliet,—­it was—­hell!” he said brokenly.  “When I wrote that note to you—­I thought the worst was over.  But it wasn’t—­it wasn’t!  He was past speaking—­but his eyes—­they kept imploring me to let him go.—­O God, I’d given my soul to help him!  And I could do—­nothing—­except see him die!”

Again a convulsive shudder caught him.  Juliet’s arms went around him.  She held his head against her breast.