the stars would hardly show, and the moon was now long down.  He was not at all sure of being able to find his way across this undulating country, so entirely devoid of prominent features, in a very dark night.  Rather he was nearly sure that he could not do it; and though he had a by no means low opinion of Julia’s abilities, he did not think that she could either.  Also, with a sense of dramatic fitness equal to that of the girl’s he thought their arrival in the town would be rather ill-timed if they started now.  It would be wiser to wait till after it was light, though dawn was not so very early now, the summer being far advanced.  So he decided, and Julia slept peacefully on, her head dropping lower and lower, till finally it reached his shoulder.  But he did not move; he left it resting there, and waited, thinking of nothing perhaps, or anything; or perhaps of that unknown quantity, the natural man, which has a way of stirring sometimes even in the most civilised, at night time.  So he sat and watched for the dawn.

CHAPTER X

TO-MORROW

It was a bright sunny morning, and, though the third and last day of the fair, people went to their business as usual.  The Dutch are early risers, and set about their day’s work in good time; but even had they been the reverse, the latest of them would have been about before Julia and Rawson-Clew reached the outskirts of the town.  They had stopped for breakfast at the first village they came to after leaving the Dunes, this on the principle of being hung for a sheep rather than a lamb.  It did not seem to matter being a little later considering the necessarily unreasonable hour of their return; also Julia, with the instinct of her family for detail; preferred to set herself to rights so as to present the best appearance possible when she arrived at the Van Heigens’.  It was not natural, of course, that a person should appear too neat and orderly after a night of adventure, lost on the Dunes; but the reverse was not becoming.  Julia hit the medium between the two with a nicety which might have cost one not a Polkington some thought, but to one of them was merely the natural thing.

Together Julia and Rawson-Clew walked to the outskirts of the town.  Their ways parted there—­his to the left, hers to the right; it was the port of which she had thought yesterday, the place of final separation.  He had proposed to go with her to the Van Heigens, so as to bear testimony to what had befallen, and to assure them that she was quite safe; but she would not have this, she felt she could manage very much better without him, his presence would only require a good deal of extra explanation, none too easy to give.  He guessed the reason of her refusal and saw the wisdom of it, although he felt annoyed that she had, as he now perceived she must, concealed their earlier acquaintance.  It might have been advisable, seeing Dutch notions of propriety; but it placed the matter in a rather invidious light, and also began to bring home to him the fact, which grew very much more evident before the day was over, that he had distinguished himself by an act of really remarkable folly.