pon her own affairs to pursue a subject which seemed to
lead away from them. Presently she rose.

"I'll be ashamed of having confessed when I see you in daylight. But I
don't care. I shan't be sorry. I feel a little better. After all, why
should I be ashamed of any one knowing I care for him?" And she
sighed, laughed, went into the house, whistling softly--sad, depressed,
but hopeful, feeling deep down that she surely must win where she had
never known what it was to lose.

Pauline looked after her. "No, it isn't fair," she repeated. She
stayed on the veranda, walking slowly to and fro not to make up her
mind, for she had done that while Gladys was confessing, but to decide
how she could best accomplish what she saw she must now no longer
delay. It was not until two hours later that she went up to bed.

When Gladys came down at nine the next morning Pauline had just gone
out--"I think, Miss Gladys, she told the coachman to drive to her
father's," said the butler.

Gladys set out alone. Instead of keeping to the paths and the woods
along the edge of the bluff she descended to the valley and the river
road. She walked rapidly, her face glowing, her eyes sparkling--she
was quick to respond to impressions through the senses, and to-day she
felt so well physically that it reacted upon her mind and forced her
spirits up. At the turn beyond Deer Creek bridge she met Scarborough
suddenly. He, too, was afoot and alone, and his greeting was
interpreted to her hopes by her spirits.

"May I turn and walk with you?" he asked.

"I'm finding myself disagreeable company today."

"You did look dull," she said, as they set out together, "dull as a
love-sick German. But I supposed it was your executive pose."

"I was thinking that I'll be old before I know it." His old-young face
was shadowed for an instant. "Old--that's an unpleasant thought, isn't
it?"

"Unpleasant for a man," said Gladys, with a laugh, light as youth's
dread of age. "For a woman, ghastly! Old and alone--either one's
dreadful enough. But--the two together! I often think of them. Don't
laugh at me--really I do. Don't you?"

"If you keep to that, our walk'll be a dismal failure. It's a road I
never take--if I can help it."

"You don't look as though you were ever gloomy." Gladys glanced up at
him admiringly. "I should have said you were one person the blue
devils wouldn't dare attack."

"Yes, but they do. And sometimes they throw me."