which she always
carried, there was, in spite of her affected ease, a slight furtiveness
in the occasional swift turn of her head, as if evading or seeking
observation.

"I will overtake her and speak to her now," continued Miss Trotter. "I
may not have so good a chance again to see her alone. You can wait here
for my return, if you like."

Chris started out of his abstraction. "Stay!" he stammered, with a
faint, tentative smile. "Perhaps--don't you think?--I had better go
first and tell her you want to see her. I can send her here. You see,
she might"--He stopped.

Miss Trotter smiled. "It was part of your promise, you know, that you
were NOT to see her again until I had spoken. But no matter! Have it as
you wish. I will wait here. Only be quick. She has just gone into the
grove."

Without another word the young man turned away, and she presently saw
him walking toward the pine grove into which Frida had disappeared. Then
she cleared a space among the matted moss and chickweed, and, gathering
her skirts about her, sat down to wait. The unwonted attitude, the
whole situation, and the part that she seemed destined to take in this
sentimental comedy affected her like some quaint child's play out of her
lost youth, and she smiled, albeit with a little heightening of color
and lively brightening of her eyes. Indeed, as she sat there listlessly
probing the roots of the mosses with the point of her parasol, the
casual passer-by might have taken herself for the heroine of some love
tryst. She had a faint consciousness of this as she glanced to the right
and left, wondering what any one from the hotel who saw her would think
of her sylvan rendezvous; and as the recollection of Chris kissing her
hand suddenly came back to her, her smile became a nervous laugh, and
she found herself actually blushing!

But she was recalled to herself as suddenly. Chris was returning. He
was walking directly towards her with slow, determined steps, quite
different from his previous nervous agitation, and as he drew nearer she
saw with some concern an equally strange change in his appearance: his
colorful face was pale, his eyes fixed, and he looked ten years older.
She rose quickly.

"I came back to tell you," he said, in a voice from which all trace of
his former agitation had passed, "that I relieve you of your promise. It
won't be necessary for you to see--Frida. I thank you all the same, Miss
Trotter," he said, avoiding her eyes with