ty that was aroused? From the way she banged together her
book and rose, it looked as if she had detected old acquaintances in the
distinguished-looking pair who were now advancing slowly toward her. But
if so, she could not have been overjoyed to see them, for after the
first hint of their approach in her direction she turned, with an aspect
of some embarrassment, and made her way out upon the lawn, where she
stood with her back to these people, caressing a small dog in a way that
betrayed her total lack of sympathy with these animals, which were
evidently her terror when she was sufficiently herself to be swayed by
her natural impulses.

The two gentlemen, on the contrary, with an air of total indifference to
her proximity, continued their walk until they reached the end of the
piazza, and then turned and proceeded mechanically to retrace their
steps.

Their faces now being brought within view of the elderly person who was
so absorbed in his newspaper, the latter shifted that sheet the merest
trifle, possibly because the sun struck his eyes too directly, possibly
because he wished to catch sight of two very remarkable men. If so, the
opportunity was good, as they stopped within a few feet of his chair.
One of them was elderly, as old as, if not older than, the man watching
him; but he was of that famous Scotch stock whose members are tough and
hale at eighty. This toughness he showed not only in his figure, which
was both upright and graceful, but in the glance of his calm, cold eye,
which fell upon everybody and everything unmoved, while that of his
young, but equally stalwart companion seemed to shrink with the most
acute sensitiveness from every person he met, save the very mild old
reader of news near whom they now paused for a half-dozen words of
conversation.

"I don't think it does me any good," was the young man's gloomy remark.
"I am wretched when with her, and doubly wretched when I try to forget
myself for a moment out of her sight. I think we had better go back. I
had rather sit where she can see me than have her wonder--Oh, I will be
careful; but you must remember how unnerving is the very silence I am
obliged to keep about what is destroying us all. I am nearly as ill as
she."

Here they drew off, and their apparently disinterested hearer turned the
page of his paper. It was five minutes before they came back. This time
it was the old gentleman who was speaking, and as he was more discreet
than his