She was water in the desert, the north star to a man without a compass.

He had seen her and come into being.
Good God, it was wonderful and awful! But who was that cursed boy?
III Six weeks had dropped off the calendar since the night at Martin's house.
Facing Grandmother Ludlow in the morning with her last handful of courage Joan had told her that she had been called back to town.

She had left immediately after breakfast in spite of the protests and entreaties of every one, including her grandfather, down whose wrinkled cheeks the tears had fallen unashamed.

With a high head and her best wilful manner she had presented to them all in that old house the bluff of easy-mindedness only to burst like a bubble as soon as the car had turned the corner into the main road.

She had gone to the little house in New York, and with a numbed heart and a constant pain in her soul, had packed some warm-weather clothes and, leaving her maid behind, hidden herself away in the cottage, on the outskirts of Greenwich, of an old woman who had been in the service of her school.