Believing that Miss Nellie had diverged from
the highway only as a momentary excursion into the shade, and that she
would not dare to penetrate its more sombre and unknown recesses, he
kept within sight of the skirting plain. By degrees the sedate influence
of the silent vaults seemed to depress him. The ardor of the chase began
to flag. Under the calm of their dim roof the fever of his veins began
to subside; his pace slackened; he reasoned more deliberately. It was by
no means probable that the young woman in a brown duster was Nellie;
it was not her habitual traveling dress; it was not like her to walk
unattended in the road; there was nothing in her tastes and habits to
take her into this gloomy forest, allowing that she had even entered
it; and on this absolute question of her identity the two witnesses were
divided. He stopped irresolutely, and cast a last, long, half-despairing
look around him. Hitherto he had given that part of the wood nearest the
plain his greatest attention. His glance now sought its darker recesses.
Suddenly he became breathless. Was it a beam of sunlight that had
pierced the groined roof above, and now rested against the trunk of one
of the dimmer, more secluded giants? No, it was moving; even as he gazed
it slipped away, glanced against another tree, passed across one of the
vaulted aisles, and then was lost again. Brief as was the glimpse, he
was not mistaken--it was the figure of a woman.

In another moment he was on her track, and soon had the satisfaction of
seeing her reappear at a lesser distance. But the continual intervention
of the massive trunks made the chase by no means an easy one, and as he
could not keep her always in sight he was unable to follow or understand
the one intelligent direction which she seemed to invariably keep.
Nevertheless, he gained upon her breathlessly, and, thanks to the
bark-strewn floor, noiselessly. He was near enough to distinguish and
recognize the dress she wore, a pale yellow, that he had admired when he
first saw her. It was Nellie, unmistakably; if it were she of the brown
duster, she had discarded it, perhaps for greater freedom. He was near
enough to call out now, but a sudden nervous timidity overcame him; his
lips grew dry. What should he say to her? How account for his presence?
"Miss Nellie, one moment!" he gasped. She darted forward and--vanished.

At this moment he was not more than a dozen yards from her. He rushed
to where she had been