[Illustration:  BECKY DREW A SHARP BREATH—­THEN FACED DALTON SQUARELY—­“I AM GOING TO MARRY RANDY”]

Nellie Custis, padding at his heels, had known that something disturbed him.  He walked restlessly from room to room, from porch to porch, across the lawn, skirted the garden, stopped now and then to listen, called once when he saw a white figure alone by the big gate, “Becky!”

Nellie knew who it was that he wanted.  And at last she instituted a search on her own account.  She went through the garden, passed the pool, found Becky’s feet in blue slippers, and rushed back to her master with an air of discovery.

But Randy would not follow her.  He must, he knew, set a curb on his impatience.  He walked beyond the gate, following the ridge of the hill to the box hedge.  He was not in the least aware that his shadow showed up against the silver of the sky.  Perhaps Fate guided him to the ridge, who knows?  At any rate, it seemed so afterwards to Becky, who felt that the shadow of Randy against the silver sky was the thing that saved her.

She gave the old Indian cry, and he answered it.

His shadow wavered on the ridge.  He was lost for a moment against the blackness of the hedge, and emerged on the other side of the pool.

“Randy,” she was a bit breathless, “here we are.  Mr. Dalton and I. I saw you on the ridge.  You have no idea how tall your shadow seemed——­”

She was talking in that clear light voice which was not her own.  Dalton said sullenly, “Hello, Paine.”  And Randy’s heart was singing, “She called me.”

The three of them walked to the house together.  Becky had insisted that she must go back to her guests.  George left them at the step.  He was for the moment beaten.  As he drove his car madly back to King’s Crest, he tried to tell himself that it was all for the best.  That he must let Becky alone.  He would be a fool to throw himself away on a shabby slender slip of a thing because she had clear eyes and bronze hair.

But it was not because of her slenderness and clear eyes and bronze hair that Becky held him, it was because of the force within her which baffled him.

The guests were leaving.  They had had the time of their lives.  They packed themselves into their various cars, and the surrey, and shouted “good-bye.”  The Major stayed and sat on the lawn to talk to the Judge and Mrs. Beaufort.  Mary and Truxton ascended the stairs to the Blue Room, where little Fiddle slept in the Bannister crib that had been brought down from the attic.

Becky and Randy went into the Bird Room and sat under the swinging lamp.  “I have something to tell you, Randy,” Becky had said, and as in the days of their childhood the Bird Room seemed the place for confidences.

Becky curled herself up in the Judge’s big chair like a tired child.  Randy on the other side of the empty fireplace said, “You ought to be in bed, Becky.”