“It was such a beautiful night, Johnnie and I took a walk in the moonlight.”

Darrie looked from one to the other of us with a wide, staring look.

“You needn’t look that way, Darrie!”

“Please, please, Hildreth!”

“You and Penton have taken walks in the moonlight.”

“Hildreth, dear, I’m not rebuking you ... and you know my walks with Penton are all right, are harmless.”

“Yes, I know they are ... but you mustn’t rebuke me, either.”

“I wasn’t rebuking either you or Johnnie ... it isn’t that I’m thinking of at all ... but everything has been so uncanny here to-night ...  I could not sleep ... every little rustle of curtains, every creak or motion in the whole house vibrated through me ... something’s going to happen to someone.”

“You’re only upset because Penton’s in jail,” I explained.

“No, that’s not it ... that’s nothing compared to this feeling ... this premonition—­”

“Come on, let’s make some coffee ... in the percolator.”

“You girls sit down and I’ll make it.  I’ve been a cook several times in my career.”

Someone was knocking about in the dark, upstairs.  We heard a match struck....

“There, we’ve waked Ruth, too.”

“What’s the matter down there?” Ruth was calling.

“Come on down and join us, Ruth,—­we’re having a cup of coffee a-piece.”

“It’s only two o’clock ... what’s everybody doing up so early?  Has Penton come back?”

“No ... but do come down and join us,” I replied.

* * * * *

“I tell you, I thought it was burglars at first, and I was going to the drawer in Penton’s room and get out his six-shooter.”

“Does Penton keep a gun?” I asked.

“Yes ... it’s the one he bought to shoot the mongrel dog with.”

* * * * *

We ate some cold roast beef sandwiches and drank our coffee.

Hildreth stayed in the big house, not going down the path with me.

I went silently to my tent.  It was blowing a little now.  The moon was surging along behind little, grey, running clouds.  It would rain before daylight.  A haunted shiver swept through my back as I stole along the path.  I repeated poetry rapidly aloud to crowd out uncanny imaginings.  I had a silly, sick impulse to run back to the big house and sleep on the couch in the library.

But I forced myself on.  “If you’re ever going to be a man, you’d better begin now,” I muttered to myself, as if talking to another person.

In my tent ...  I lit the lamp.  I removed all hanging objects because their lurching shadows sent shivers of apprehension through me....

“That damned coffee—­wish I hadn’t drunk it.”

* * * * *

The wind and rain came up like a phantom army.  It sang in the trees, it drummed musically on my tent.  It comforted me.