She burst out: "It is _you_--you yourself that he's waiting for. It is
_you_ who come to-morrow."

He murmured. "Oh! It's me!" blankly, and they seemed to become
breathless together. Apparently he was pondering over what he had heard;
then, without irritation, but evidently perplexed, he said: "I don't
understand. I hadn't written or anything. It's my chum who saw the paper
and told me--this very morning. . . . Eh? what?"

He bent his ear; she whispered rapidly, and he listened for a while,
muttering the words "yes" and "I see" at times. Then, "But why won't
today do?" he queried at last.

"You didn't understand me!" she exclaimed, impatiently. The clear
streak of light under the clouds died out in the west. Again he stooped
slightly to hear better; and the deep night buried everything of the
whispering woman and the attentive man, except the familiar contiguity
of their faces, with its air of secrecy and caress.

He squared his shoulders; the broad-brimmed shadow of a hat sat
cavalierly on his head. "Awkward this, eh?" he appealed to her.
"To-morrow? Well, well! Never heard tell of anything like this. It's all
to-morrow, then, without any sort of to-day, as far as I can see."

She remained still and mute.

"And you have been encouraging this funny notion," he said.

"I never contradicted him."