was so high that it was on a
level with her eyes. There was an array of pipes and a tin box of
tobacco; a volume of Schiller, with some matches lying loose upon it;
and, flat on the board, a photograph. She picked it up idly, not
noticing what she was doing, conscious only of doing something, so that
her separation from the others might not be noticeable. Her discovery
proved to be half of a picture of a Neighborhood picnic, taken by an
itinerant photographer who had established his tent near the Flora
post-office. It was that side of the group in which she was standing,
and her figure was brought into relief by a frame of card-board slipped
over it like a mat. It had become a picture of herself, and of herself
alone.

Her first feeling--the instinct that comes before thought--was one of
pleasure; he had cared enough to do that. But quick upon it came the
cry of wounded pride. She found von Rittenheim at her side, and turned
upon him fiercely.

"How dare you?" she cried, in an undertone. "How dare you do such a
thing? You know I never have given any man my picture,--once I told you
so,--and you have made this a picture of me alone. You, who----"

She broke off, choking, but she had enough voice to add,--

"But it is like you, it is like you!" as she tore the card into bits
and flung it into the fireplace.

Friedrich stooped involuntarily to catch the falling fragments, but he
saw at once the foolishness of his movement, and desisted. He said
nothing, and Sydney, made ashamed of her tirade by his silence, as she
would not have been by any words, at last looked up at him. The
expression on his face was so hopeless, so unutterably sad, that she,
in her turn, stood silent.

"Could you not have left me that?" he whispered, hoarsely.

Sydney was held by the inexplicable bond of his mute pain. A sense of
comprehension went through her, and with it a thrill of happiness. It
might be that after all--yes, it _must_ be that he had not been
trifling with her, that he had cared, that he was suffering as she
herself was suffering. And if so, how rewarded was her sacrifice! Her
love had been strong enough to make her willing that he should love
another woman, if his happiness lay in so doing. Her reward came in the
knowledge that after all his love was hers--that he was sharing her
sacrifice. _Why_ this was she did not understand; she only felt sure
that she was right, and she gloried in it. Then, woman-like, she
reproached h