reatened to kill him. The evidence, while, of course, not
conclusive, is shockingly bad for Mead."

She looked away, toward the Hermosa mountains looming sharp and jagged
in the fierce afternoon sunlight, and he saw her lips tremble. Then,
as if her will caught and held them, the movements ceased with a
little inrush of breath. He lowered his voice and made it very kindly
and sympathetic as he leaned toward her and went on:

"For your sake, I am very sorry for all this if Mr. Mead is a friend
of yours. He is a very taking young fellow, with his handsome face and
good-natured smile. But, also for your sake," and his voice went down
almost to a murmur, "I hope he is not a friend."

There were tears in her eyes and distress, perplexity and pain in her
face as she turned impulsively toward him, as if grasping at his
sympathy.

"I have it!" he thought. "She is in love with Mead! Now we'll find out
how far it has gone. Papa Frenchy couldn't have known of it."

"I can not say he is a friend," she said slowly. "He is scarcely an
acquaintance. I have not met him, I think, more than half a dozen
times, and only a few minutes each time. But he has always been so
kind to my little brother that I find it hard to believe a man so
gentle and thoughtful with a child could be so--criminal."

"Ah! Love at first sight, probably not reciprocated!" was Wellesly's
mental comment. "I guess it is a case in which it would be proper to
offer consolation, and watch the effect." Gradually he led the
conversation away from this painful topic and talked with her about
other places in which she had lived. Then they drifted to more
personal matters, to theories upon life and duty, and he spoke with
the warmest admiration of what he called the ideal principles by which
she guided her life and declared that they would be impossible to a
man, unless he had the good fortune to be stimulated and helped by
some noble woman who realized them in her own life. It was admiration
of the most delicate, impersonal sort, seemingly directed not to the
girl herself, but to the girl she had wished and tried to be. It set
Marguerite Delarue's heart a-flutter with pleasure. No one had ever
given her such open and such delicate admiration, and she was too
unsophisticated to conceal her delight. He smiled to himself at her
evident pleasure in his words, and, with much the same feeling with
which he might have cuddled a purring, affectionate kitten, he went a
step f