Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/114

 clasped over his head, staring at the blackness in which he saw sudden retinal images of her that flashed and vanished. And he tried to make his bed rock down through the floor to "Slumberland"—in a return to his childish fancies—holding to the memory of her in the hope that he might compel her to come into his dreams; and he woke, with a start, his arms numb, his shoulders aching, and found the thought of her again, and cuddled down with it under the bedclothes like a child who wakes frightened, and finds its mother's hand there in the dark.

  was next day that Conroy met him in the college corridor, and took him aside, to the deep embrasure of a window, with a manner at once confused and mysterious. "Read this," he said, and drew from his pocket the small envelope of a note from her. It announced that she and her mother were staying with the Kimballs, invited him to call, and concluded, "If there are any other of our Coulton friends in town, will you please let them know?"

Don read it, refolded it, returned it to its envelope, and gave it back without a word.

Conroy asked timidly: "Didn't she write to you?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Perhaps she didn't know you were here."

"Yes. I think she knew."

