Parker having already gone
to open the Newport house for the renter, as a staff of servants was let
with it, and then he added, as if conferring a favour, "and Mrs. Latham
has gone on the coach to the station to meet some guests, the last 'ouse
party before she sails."

"Before she sails," thought Bradford, numbly. Sylvia was going? Could he
believe the man? Should he go through the formality of leaving a card
that she might not get? No, he would go home and write a letter.

Sylvia kept the house until late in the afternoon, these days. Then she
slipped out by the servants' stairway, and through the garden, to walk in
the wood lane that ran northward, joining the two parallel highroads; for
her healthy body needed air, and she knew that if she did not have it,
she could not control herself to keep peaceful silence for even the few
days that remained. So it chanced this afternoon that she was walking to
and fro in the quiet lane where the ferns crept down quite to the grassy
wheel tracks, when Perkins said those repellent words, "Not at home."

As Bradford turned out the gate and noticed that the sun was already
setting, he thought to save time by cutting through the almost unused
lane to the turnpike that led directly to Pine Ridge. He had driven but
halfway across, when a flutter of light garments a little way ahead
attracted him. Could it be? Yes, it was Sylvia, in truth, and at the
moment that he recognized her and sprang to the ground she heard the
approaching hoofs and turned. For a full minute neither spoke nor moved,
then going quickly to her and stretching out both hands, he said, his
heart breaking through his voice, "I have been to see you. I did not know
until to-day."

She gave her hands, and in another moment his strong arms held her fast
and unresisting--the purifying friendship of those unconscious years
crystallized and perfected at love's first touch.

They said but very little as they walked up and down the lane together,
for half an hour; but as the shadows lengthened, the thought came equally
to both--"What should they do next? How could they part, and yet how stay
together?" Horace, with man's barbarian directness, would have liked to
bear her home to safety and his mother; but the shadow of usage and her
mother stood between, for in spite of the hollow mockery of it all,
Sylvia was still of her household.

"I must take you home," he said at last, "and to-morrow I will come--all
shall be arra