Presently, as Rose sat beside the window, she heard footsteps on the gravel sidewalk outside the front yard, and then a man’s figure came into view, like a moving shadow.  She knew the figure was a man because there was no swing of skirts.  Her heart beat fast when the man opened the front gate and shut it with a faint click.  She wondered if it could be Horace, but immediately she saw, from the slightly sidewise shoulders and gait, that it was Henry Whitman.  She heard him enter; she heard doors opened and closed.  After a time she heard a murmur of voices.  Then there was a flash of light across the yard, from a lighted lamp being carried through a room below.  The light was reflected on the ceiling of her room.  Then it vanished, and everything was quiet.  Rose thought that Sylvia and Henry had retired for the night.  She almost knew that Horace was not in the house.  She had heard him go out after supper and she had not heard him enter.  He had a habit of taking long walks on fine nights.

Rose sat and wondered.  Once the suspicion smote her that possibly, after all, Lucy had spoken the truth, that Horace was with her.  Then she dismissed the suspicion as unworthy of her.  She recalled what Sylvia had said; she recalled how she herself had heard Lucy lie.  She knew that Horace could not be fond of a girl like that, and he had known her quite a long time.  Again Rose’s young rapture and belief in her own happiness reigned.  She sat still, and the moon at last sailed out of the feathery clasp of the elm branches, and the whole landscape was in a pale, clear glow.  Then Horace came.  Rose started up.  She stood for an instant irresolute, then she stole out of her room and down the spiral stair very noiselessly.  She opened the front door before Horace could insert his key in the latch.

Horace started back.

“Hush,” whispered Rose.  She stifled a laugh.  “Step back out in the yard just a minute,” she whispered.

Horace obeyed.  He stepped softly back, and Rose joined him after she had closed the door with great care.

“Now come down as far as the gate, out of the shadows,” whispered Rose.  “I want to show you something.”

The two stole down to the gate.  Then Rose faced Horace in full glare of moonlight.

“Look at me,” said she, and she stifled another laugh of pure, childish delight.

Horace looked.  Only a few of the stones which Rose wore caught the moonlight to any extent, but she was all of a shimmer and gleam, like a creature decked with dewdrops.

“Look at me,” she whispered again.

“I am looking.”

“Do you see?”

“What?”

“They are poor Aunt Abrahama’s jewels.  Aunt Sylvia gave them to me.  Aren’t they beautiful?  Such lovely, old-fashioned settings.  You can’t half see in the moonlight.  You shall see them by day.”

“It is beautiful enough now,” said Horace, with a sort of gasp.  “Those are pearls around your neck?”