CHAPTER XIII 114
He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars and looked more immense than ever.
" They have to please me," he said. " I will make them take me there and I will let you go, too."
Mary ' s hands clutched each other. Everything would be spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.
" Oh, don ' t--don ' t--don ' t--don ' t do that!" she cried out. He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy! " Why?" he exclaimed. " You said you wanted to see it."
" I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, " but if you make them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret again."
He leaned still farther forward. " A secret," he said. " What do you mean? Tell me." Mary ' s words almost tumbled over one another.
" You see--you see," she panted, " if no one knows but ourselves--if there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we could find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it all come alive-- "
" Is it dead?" he interrupted her.