Laughingly, she refused to tell him about her trip as they rode home, saying that Auntie Sue must hear it all with him.

And so conscious was the man of her presence there beside him that, somehow, the prospective success or failure of his book did not so much matter, after all.
In the excitement of the joyous meeting between Auntie Sue and Betty Jo, Judy's stoical self-repression was unnoticed.

The mountain girl went about her part of the household work silently with apparent indifference to the young woman's presence.

But when, after the late dinner was over, Auntie Sue and Brian listened to Betty Jo's story, Judy, unobserved, was nearby, so that no word of the conversation escaped her.
Three times that night, when all was still in the little log house by the river, the door of Judy's room opened cautiously, and the twisted form of the mountain girl appeared.

Each time, for a few minutes, she stood there in the moonlight that shone through the open window into the quiet room, listening, listening; then went stealthily to the door of the room where Betty Jo was sleeping, and each time she paused before that closed door to look fearfully about the dimly lighted living room.
Once she crept to Brian's door, and then to Auntie Sue's, and once she silently put her hand on the latch of that door between her and Betty Jo; but, each time, she went stealthily back to her own room.
Betty Jo awoke early that morning.