“Don’t be absurd!” he said authoritatively; “you are to keep that on,” and he wrapped it about her with a decision that brought home to her her youth and smallness.

“You are shutting all the damp in,” she protested, shifting her point of attack, “and that is very unwholesome.  I shan’t get warm; I haven’t any warmth to start with; you are wasting what you have got to no purpose.”

But he did not waste it, for eventually it was arranged that they sat close together under the tree, with the coat put as far as it would go over both of them.  Rawson-Clew was not given to thinking how things looked, he did what he thought necessary, or advisable, without taking any thought of that kind; so it did not occur to him how this arrangement might look to an unprejudiced observer, had there been any such.  But Julia, with her faculty for seeing herself as others saw her, was much, though silently, amused as she thought of the Van Heigens.  Poor, kind folks, they were doubtless already wondering what could have become of her; if they could only have seen her sitting thus, with an unknown man, what would their Dutch propriety have said?

“Do you suppose this fog will be in the town?” Rawson-Clew said, after a time.

“No,” she answered, “I should think not; from what I have heard, I think it is very unlikely.”

“Then the Van Heigens won’t know what has become of you?”

“Not a bit in the world; they don’t even know where I was going to-day.  I did not tell them; I am afraid they will be rather uneasy about me, but perhaps not so very much, they know by this time I can take care of myself; besides, I shall be home before bed-time, if the fog lifts.”

Rawson-Clew agreed, and they talked of other things.  Julia held the opinion that when an evil has to be endured, not cured, there is no good in discussing it over and over again; she had a considerable gift for making the best of other things besides opportunities.

But the fog did not lift soon; it did not grow denser, but it did not grow less; it just lay soft and chilly, casting a white pall of silence on all things, closing day before its time, and making it impossible to say when evening ended and night began.  Gradually the two who waited for its lifting fell into silence, and Julia, tired out, at last dropped asleep, her head tilted back against the tree-trunk, her shoulder pressed close against Rawson-Clew under the shelter of his coat.

He did not move, he was afraid of waking her; he sat watching, waiting in the eerie white stillness, until at last the space before him altered, and gradually between the trees he saw the faint outline of a hill, dark against the dark sky.  Slowly the white mist rolled from it, a billowy, ghostly thing, that left a black, vague world, only dimly seen.  He looked at the sleeping girl, then at the hill; the fog was clearing, there was no doubt about that; soon it would be quite gone, but it would be a very dark night,