ided by mere
accident, perhaps only by the thickness of the atmosphere, were
incalculable, and sent the blood to her cheeks in a sudden glow.

The memory of their last meeting flooded her whole being warmly, to be
followed by a dreary realisation of their present position. The very
drawing of the curtains between them seemed symbolical, not so much of
his expressed determination to see her no more as of the relentlessness
of Fate. She believed that he was strong enough to keep his promise,
and knew how gladly she would have him break it. Her actual situation
at the moment, shut out from him and standing alone in the night, gave
her longing an intensity which she had not hitherto experienced. She
wondered whether he would have taken her in his arms and kissed her
good-bye once more, had he overtaken her upon the hill. Presently she
resumed her way, thinking of the man she was leaving there in his
lonely tower rather than of the man she was so soon to meet.

Some quarter of a mile further on, she came to a huge button-ball tree
that marked the trysting-place. Its great trunk and long branches,
spotted with white patches, like scars on the twisted limbs of a giant,
confronted her as a hideous and uncanny thing. This tree, the only
kind in all the country that lacked beauty of line and colour, received
a touch of ghastliness from the atmosphere that enveloped it which was
not without its effect upon her imagination, and when she saw the mayor
emerge from its shadow, she started as if she were confronted by a
highwayman.

"Is it you, Felicity?" he ventured anxiously. "I thought you were
never coming."

"Was I late?" she returned. "I did n't mean to be; but let us walk
further on. We can talk as we go."

As she caught sight of the eager light in his eyes and noted the
intonation of his voice, she divined that his mood was radically
different from that which had carried him to her house in hot haste a
few mornings before. Then, he was burning with a sense of humiliation,
frantic with the thought that she was slipping from his grasp,
embittered by baffled ambition, and determined to assert his rights.
Now, softer emotions held sway in his heart. The memory of that scene
in the opera house had grown less galling. He was soothed by the
blandishments of resilient self-esteem and by his friends' more
flattering interpretation of the incident. Indeed, looked at from one
perspective, it was a most impressive vindi