river to sketch," she
said. "I had no idea--" She dropped down on the bank and began to
pick vaguely at the clover. "Please go. Good-by."

The brim of her sailor hat guarded her face, so that she really did not
see the book which I was holding toward her. I placed it on the grass
beside her and turned to obey, intending to march away in military
fashion, perhaps whistling my defiance.

"You'll promise to forget me," I heard her say.

I looked down at her, but the hat screened her face.

"Yes," I answered, with a steadiness that was surprising, for my throat
was parched and my knees had become very weak, so weak that I gave up
all thought of marching in military fashion and gathered strength to
drag myself out of her sight. I went up the lane slowly. I looked
back and saw her sitting very still, one hand on her big portfolio, the
other listless on the clover. I reached the bend in the lane. Passing
it, I should march on to my conquests, unhappy, wofully unhappy, but
going faster because alone.

"David," she called.

I stepped back, hardly believing my ears. She was sitting very still,
looking over the lane and the hills. I went nearer. She was like
stone. I sat down at her side and somehow my hand touched her hand on
the big portfolio, and her hand did not move. And somehow my hand
closed on hers.

"David," she said, looking up, "you won't forget me, will you?"

Forget you! I swore to Gladys Todd that I had been idly boasting. I
would have carried her image to the grave, burned on my heart. The
memory of her would have been the only light in all my life of
darkness. But now there was no darkness. For us there was only
glorious day. The astonishing thing, the incomprehensible thing, was
that Gladys Todd could love me; that it was really true that she loved
me that first night we met; that she loved me yesterday when she sat on
the vine-clad porch painting tulips so carelessly.

"But I did, David," she protested.

"Then why didn't you say so?" I returned reproachfully.

"Because I wanted to make you say so," she answered.

"But, Gladys," I cried, "I was sure you were in love with Boller."

She stared at me with eyes full of wonder.

"With Boller," I exclaimed. "Boller of '89."

"Why, David Malcolm, you poor, dear child," she cried. "How could you
have been so foolish. He left yesterday--yesterday at three."

A cloud suddenly hurled itself across the brightness of my day. It
seeme