"You ran away last time," he said.

"Oh, that was only--only because I was afraid the Colonel might be angry
with me," she murmured.

"Oh well, there is no Colonel to be angry now," he said. "It's a promise
then, is it?"

But for some reason wholly undefined she hesitated. She felt as if she
could not bring herself thus to cut off her own line of retreat. "No, I
don't think I can quite promise that," she said, after a moment.

"You won't?" he said.

His tone warned her to reconsider her decision. "I--I'll tell you
to-morrow," she said hastily.

"I may be gone by to-morrow," he said.

She looked up at him with swift daring. "Oh no, you won't," she said,
with conviction. "Or if you are, you'll come back."

"How do you know that?" he demanded, frowning upon her while his eyes
still gleamed with that lambent fire that made her half afraid.

She dropped her own. "There's someone coming," she whispered. "It doesn't
matter, does it? I do know. Good-bye!"

She slipped her hand from his with a little secret sense of triumph; for