North shook his head.
"I'll walk, thank you," he said briefly.
In silence he turned to Elizabeth and held out his hand.

For an instant she rested hers in it, a cold little hand that trembled; their eyes met in a brief glance of perfect understanding, and then North turned from her.

The general followed him into the hall.
"It's stopped snowing, and you will have clear starlight for your walk home,--the wind's gone down, too!" he said, as he opened the hall door.
"Don't come any farther, General Herbert!" said North.
But the general followed him into the stone arched vestibule.
"It's a fine night for your walk,--but you're quite sure you don't want to be driven into town ?" "No, no,--good night." And North held out his hand.
"Good night." North went down the carriageway, and Herbert reentered the house.
North kept to the beaten path for a little while, then left it and tramped out across the fields until he came to a strip of woodland that grew along a stony hillside.

He followed this ridge back a short distance and presently emerged upon a sloping meadow that overhung a narrow ravine.

Not two hundred yards distant loomed Idle Hour, somber and dark and massive.