had not her warm heart enfolded him, before her success
and her fame had chilled its fires? For the sake of the Elisabeth that
used to be, Christopher would always be a friend to Willie; and he did
not find it hard to love the child for his own sake, since Christopher
had great powers of loving, and but little to expend them upon.

As Willie continually asked for Elisabeth, Felicia wrote and told her
so; and the moment she found she was wanted, Elisabeth came down to the
Willows for a week--though her fame and the London season were alike at
their height--and went every day to see Willie at the Moat House. He
loved to have her with him, because she talked to him about things that
his parents never mentioned to him; and as these things were drawing
nearer to Willie day by day, his interest in them unconsciously
increased. He and she had long talks together about the country on the
other side of the hills, and what delightful times they would have when
they reached it: how Willie would be able to walk as much as he liked,
and Elisabeth would be able to love as much as she wanted, and life
generally would turn out to be a success--a thing which it so rarely
does on this side of the hills.

Christopher, as a rule, kept away from the Moat House when Elisabeth
was there; he thought she did not wish to see him, and he was not the
type of man to go where he imagined he was not wanted; but one afternoon
they met there by accident, and Christopher inwardly blessed the Fate
which made him do the very thing he had so studiously refrained from
doing. He had been sitting with Tremaine, and she with Felicia and
Willie; and they met in the hall on their way out.

"Are you going my way?" asked Elisabeth graciously, when they had shaken
hands. It was dull at Sedgehill after London, and the old flirting
spirit woke up in her and made her want to flirt with Christopher again,
in spite of all that had happened. With the born flirt--as with all born
players of games--the game itself is of more importance than the
personality of the other players; which sometimes leads to unfortunate
mistakes on the part of those players who do not rightly understand the
rules of the game.

"Yes, Miss Farringdon, I am," said Christopher, who would have been
going Elisabeth's way had that way led him straight to ruin. With him
the personality of the player--in this case, at least--mattered
infinitely more than any game she might choose to play. As long as