good thing for a boy like Stuart to begin
taking a little punishment while he's young. Young hearts, not less than
young bones, mend quicker and better. He's over intense and if he got
the _real_ before he's had his puppy loves it would go hard with him."

CHAPTER II

When Stuart presented himself at breakfast the next morning his eyes
were black-ringed with sleeplessness, but his riding boots were freshly
polished and his scarf tied with extra precision. It was in the mind of
the youngest Farquaharson to attain so personable an appearance that the
lady who had cast aside his love should be made to realize what she had
lost as they passed on the highway.

Then he went to the stables to have Johnny Reb saddled and started away,
riding slowly. When he came in view of the house which she sanctified
with her presence, a gray saddle mare stood fighting flies and stamping
by the stone hitching post in front of the verandah, and each swish of
the beast's tail was a flagellation to the boy's soul. The mare belonged
to Jimmy Hancock and logically proclaimed Jimmy's presence within.
Heretofore between Stuart and Jimmy had existed a cordial amity, but now
the aggrieved one remembered many things which tainted Jimmy with
villainy and crassness. Stuart turned away, his hand heavy on the bit,
so that Johnny Reb, unaccustomed to this style of taking pleasure sadly,
tossed his head fretfully and widened his scarlet nostrils in disgust.

Ten minutes later the single and grim-visaged horseman riding north came
upon a pair riding south. Johnny Reb's silk coat shone now with sweat,
but his pace was sedate. The love-sick Stuart had no wish to travel so
fast as would deny the lady opportunity to halt him for conversation.
Conscience and Jimmy were also riding slowly and Stuart schooled his
features into the grave dignity of nobly sustained suffering. No
Marshal of France passing the Emperor's reviewing stand ever rode with a
deeper sense of the portentous moment. With his chin high and his face
calm in its stricken dignity he felt that no lady with a heart in her
soft bosom could fail to extend proffers of conciliation. In a moment
more they would meet in the narrow road. His face paled a shade or two
under the tension--then they were abreast and his heart broke and the
apple of life was dead sea fruit to his palate. She had spoken. She had
even smiled and waved her riding crop, but she had done both with so
superlative an indiffe