But still there was a something in her manner--a light in the
gray eyes, perhaps, or a quality in the clear voice--that meant worlds
more to the man than her simple statement, that she was glad to see him
again. 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.
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