Daphne Deane by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

Daphne that she was thinking more now of the boy she had not known intimately than of his real self with whom she had spent the long bright day. The little boy had belonged to her, but the young man was someone who lived afar and whom she would not likely see again, at least not often.
    But suddenly as she stood watching the dim old house in the sweet darkness, a speck of light winked through the shrubbery. She watched it with alert eyes. A firefly? Only one ? If it was a firefly, there would be more than one surely, and she searched the darkness intently for others. Perhaps this was only the advance guard.
    It winked about in a circle, hovered over the same location, danced about a bit, disappeared, then steadily glowed in one spot for a moment and was gone! A curious way for a firefly to act. There! There it was again! It was almost like the beam of a tiny pocket flashlight. Could it be that Keith had gone back to the house after all and was out there hunting for something that he had dropped in the darkness?
    But no. The train had gone, and he had been insistent that he must get back to New York. Besides, he hadn't any flashlight with him. She remembered his wishing for one when they went into the house and he had been searching for the fastening of the shutter in the dark parlor, for, of course, the electricity was not on in the house.
    There! There it was again! Just a wink. Oh, of course it was only an erratic little firefly, and she was a silly. She must go to bed.
    But she did not turn on her light. Instead she undressed in the dark, breathing in the garden scents and keeping watch toward the old house. Once she thought she heard a grating sound like the pushing open of a door that stuck, and once she saw a wider flare of light. But when she went closer to the window all was dark, and of course it must be only her imagination working, the way it often did if she let it go.
    After she lay down in her bed she thought she heard that creaking sound again, or was it more like the slam of a door? But when she went quickly to the window there was only still darkness, no more fireflies. She went back and lay down.
    She was going over the day bit by bit now, examining everything that had been done and said, and enjoying it, as one would pick up a book of poems and glance at a sentence here, a phrase there, and sense the loveliness of each.
    Usually she fell asleep at once when she lay down, but somehow tonight she couldn't. She told herself she was too excited. And why should she be excited over the mere dropping in of an old schoolmate whom she didn't know very well? Well, that perhaps was just the effect of her upbringing, her quiet life, filled with home duties and studies and little errands of kindliness. It was late when she did at last doze off, very late she knew, because Emily Lynd's light, which always burned long after midnight, and which usually she could barely see from her pillow if she lay over to the extreme edge, had gone out. She was just slipping over the border into dreamland----or had she been over and come back?--when she was roused by some unusual sound.
    It brought her wide awake and blinking toward the window again. Perhaps it was only some sliver of a dream mingling with her waking thoughts before she fell asleep.
    What was that? A car? Surely yes, a motor running! Perhaps a truck. Perhaps the milkman. But no, the darkness of the sky showed it was not near enough to morning for him, and even as she reasoned the little clock on her mantel chimed three silvery strokes. Still that motor throbbed in low, subdued tones. It was almost a stealthy sound, as if the motor had become human and was trying to whisper and hold its breath. Now that was strange. Why should that be?
    She stole from her bed again and tried to pierce the darkness, but though she could now distinctly locate the sound, she could see nothing but dense darkness. It had hidden itself in the blackest depth of shrubbery, and as nearly as she