ole story. How she told me that though
she was your best friend, you had never spoken of me, and how she begged
me not to spoil your chance of a good match by revealing myself, and so
awakening a past--which she believed you had forgotten. How she implored
me at least to let her make a fair test of your affections and your
memory, and until then to keep away from you--and to spare you, Helen;
and for your sake, I consented. Surely she has told this, NOW!"

"Not a word," said Helen blankly.

"Then you mean to say that if I had not haunted the park to-day, in the
hope of seeing you, believing that as you would not recognize me with
this artificial arm, I should not break my promise to her,--you would
not have known I was even living."

"No!--yes!--stay!" A smile broke over her pale face and left it rosy. "I
see it all now. Oh, Philip, don't you understand? She wanted only to try
us!"

There was a silence in the lonely wood, broken only by the trills of a
frightened bird whose retreat was invaded.

"Not now! Please! Wait! Come with me!"

The next moment she had seized Philip's left hand, and, dragging him
with her, was flying down the walk towards the house. But as they neared
the garden door it suddenly opened on the duchess, with her glasses to
her eyes, smiling.

The General Don Felipe Ostrander did not buy Hamley Court, but he and
his wife were always welcome guests there. And Sir James, as became an
English gentleman,--amazed though he was at Philip's singular return,
and more singular incognito,--afterwards gallantly presented Philip's
wife with Philip's first picture.

THE JUDGMENT OF BOLINAS PLAIN

The wind was getting up on the Bolinas Plain. It had started the fine
alkaline dust along the level stage road, so that even that faint track,
the only break in the monotony of the landscape, seemed fainter than
ever. But the dust cloud was otherwise a relief; it took the semblance
of distant woods where there was no timber, of moving teams where there
was no life. And as Sue Beasley, standing in the doorway of One Spring
House that afternoon, shading her sandy lashes with her small red hand,
glanced along the desolate track, even HER eyes, trained to the dreary
prospect, were once or twice deceived.

"Sue!"

It was a man's voice from within. Sue took no notice of it, but remained
with her hand shading her eyes.

"Sue! Wot yer yawpin' at thar?"

"Yawpin'" would seem to have been the local expre