"To be sure; but there are times-"

"Yes, there are times when the odds seem rather

heavy. I have noticed that myself."

She smiled, but for an instant the sad look came into

her eyes,-a look that vaguely but insistently suggested

another time and place.

"I want you to come back," I said boldly, for the

train was very near, and I felt that the eyes of the Sisters

were upon us. "You can not go away where I shall

not find you!"

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I did not know who this girl was, her home, or her

relation to the school, but I knew that her life and

mine had touched strangely; that her eyes were blue,

and that her voice had called to me twice through the

dark, in mockery once and in warning another time,

and that the sense of having known her before, of having

looked into her eyes, haunted me. The youth in

her was so luring; she was at once so frank and so

guarded,-breeding and the taste and training of an

ampler world than that of Annandale were so evidenced

in the witchery of her voice, in the grace and ease that

marked her every motion, in the soft gray tone of hat,

dress and gloves, that a new mood, a new hope and

faith sang in my pulses. There, on that platform, I felt

again the sweet heartache I had known as a boy, when

spring first warmed the Vermont hillsides and the

mountains sent the last snows singing in joy of their

release down through the brook-beds and into the wakened

heart of youth.

She met my eyes steadily.

"If I thought there was the slightest chance of my

ever seeing you again I shouldn't be talking to you

here. But I thought, I thought it would be good fun

to see how you really talked to a grown-up. So I am

risking the displeasure of these good Sisters just to test

your conversational powers, Mr. Glenarm. You see how

perfectly frank I am."

"But you forget that I can follow you; I don't intend

to sit down in this hole and dream about you. You

can't go anywhere but I shall follow and find you."

"That is finely spoken, Squire Glenarm! But I imagine

you are hardly likely to go far from Glenarm

very soon. It isn't, of course, any of my affair; and yet

I don't hesitate to say that I feel perfectly safe from

pursuit!"-and she laughed her little low laugh that

was delicious in its mockery.

I felt the blood mounting to my cheek. She knew,

then, that I was virtually a prisoner at Glenarm, and

for once in my life, at least, I was ashamed of my folly

that had caused my grandfather to hold and check me

from the grave, as he had never been able to control me

in his life. The whole countryside knew why I was at

Glenarm, and that did not matter; but my heart rebelled

at the thought that this girl knew and mocked me with

her knowledge.




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