n its verge, and turning to look back into its charmed
recesses. Once or twice--perhaps because he recalled the words of the
poem--that yellowish sea of ferns had seemed instinct with hidden life,
and he had even fancied, here and there, a swaying of its plumed crests.
Howbeit, he still lingered long enough for the open sunlight into which
he had obtruded to point out the bravery of his handsome figure. Then
he wheeled his horse, the light glanced from polished double bit and
bridle-fripperies, caught his red sash and bullion buttons, struck a
parting flash from his silver spurs, and he was gone!

For a moment the light streamed unbrokenly through the wood. And then
it could be seen that the yellow mass of undergrowth HAD moved with the
passage of another figure than his own. For ever since he had entered
the shade, a woman, shawled in a vague, shapeless fashion, had watched
him wonderingly, eagerly, excitedly, gliding from tree to tree as he
advanced, or else dropping breathlessly below the fronds of fern whence
she gazed at him as between parted fingers. When he wheeled she had run
openly to the west, albeit with hidden face and still clinging shawl,
and taken a last look at his retreating figure. And then, with a faint
but lingering sigh, she drew back into the shadow of the wood again and
vanished also.

CHAPTER III

At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hamlin reined in his mare. He had just
observed in the distant shadows of a by-lane that intersected his road
the vanishing flutter of two light print dresses. Without a moment's
hesitation he lightly swerved out of the high-road and followed the
retreating figures.

As he neared them, they seemed to be two slim young girls, evidently
so preoccupied with the rustic amusement of edging each other off the
grassy border into the dust of the track that they did not perceive
his approach. Little shrieks, slight scufflings, and interjections of
"Cynthy! you limb!" "Quit that, Eunice, now!" and "I just call that
real mean!" apparently drowned the sound of his canter in the soft dust.
Checking his speed to a gentle trot, and pressing his horse close beside
the opposite fence, he passed them with gravely uplifted hat and a
serious, preoccupied air. But in that single, seemingly conventional
glance, Mr. Hamlin had seen that they were both pretty, and that one had
the short upper lip of his errant little guide. A hundred yards farther
on he halted, as if irresolutely, gazed