des a
little farther on--and you might find yourself in the kitchen."

Austen smiled, and as she went on slowly, he followed her, the path not
being wide enough for them to walk abreast, his eyes caressing the stray
hairs that clustered about her neck and caught the light. It seemed so
real, and yet so unrealizable, that he should be here with her.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I did not express my gratitude as I should
have done the evening you were good enough to come up to Jabe Jenney's."

He saw her colour rise again, but she did not pause.

"Please don't say anything about it, Mr. Vane. Of course I understand how
you felt," she cried.

"Neither my father nor myself will forget that service," said Austen.

"It was nothing," answered Victoria, in a low voice. "Or, rather, it was
something I shall always be glad that I did not miss. I have seen Mr.
Vane all my life, but I never=-never really knew him until that day. I
have come to the conclusion," she added, in a lighter tone, "that the
young are not always the best judges of the old. There," she added, "is
the path that goes to the kitchen, which you probably would have taken."

He laughed. Past and future were blotted out, and he lived only in the
present. He could think of nothing but that she was here beside him.
Afterwards, cataclysms might come and welcome.

"Isn't there another place," he asked, "where I might lose my way?"

She turned and gave him one of the swift, searching looks he recalled so
well: a look the meaning of which he could not declare, save that she
seemed vainly striving to fathom something in him--as though he were not
fathomable! He thought she smiled a little as she took the left-hand
path.

"You will remember me to your father?" she said. "I hope he is not
suffering."

"He is not suffering," Austen replied. "Perhaps--if it were not too much
to ask--perhaps you might come to see him, sometime? I can think of
nothing that would give him greater pleasure."

"I will come--sometime," she answered. "I am going away to-morrow, but--"

"Away?" he repeated, in dismay. Now that he was beside her, all
unconsciously the dominating male spirit which was so strong in him, and
which moves not woman alone, but the world, was asserting itself. For the
moment he was the only man, and she the only woman, in the universe.

"I am going on a promised visit to a friend of mine."

"For how long?" he demanded.

"I don't know, said Victoria, calml