excitement. Being one of
those natures whose emotions, though not subtle, make up for this
deficiency in wholesome thoroughness, he was furious with the rage of
heated youth not given to spending itself on every adventitious excuse
for annoyance, and debarred by conditions from any sort of
retaliation. In addition to being bitterly wounded, his sporting
instinct was bruised, and he chafed under the unfairness of the blow.

The beauty of the cloudless, breezeless night had been supplemented by
a lop-sided moon, risen sufficiently to show the exquisite mists
hanging like great swathes of white gossamer in the hollows, and to
cast the shadows of the buildings and trees in the silent river, at
this time of the year looking so cold and treacherous in its
rippleless flow. The wet grass was stiffening with frost, and the only
sounds disturbing the chillier purity of advancing night were the
erratic bell at the bridge and the far-off rumble of a train on the
mountain-side. Man still afforded the discordant note, and the only
heat in the surroundings was that in the burning young heart that
raged by my side.

Oh, youth! youth! You must each look back and see for yourselves, in
the aft-light cast by later experience, the mountains and fiery
ordeals you made for yourselves out of mole-hills in the matter of
heart-break. We, whose hair is white, cannot help you, though we have
gone before and know so well the cruel stretches on the road you
travel.

Ernest waited for me to take the initiative, and as everything that
rose to my lips seemed banal, we stood awkwardly silent till he was
forced into saying--

"I'm afraid you are overdoing yourself. Can I not help you to your
room? You will be ill."

"The only thing that would overdo me is that you should be upset about
this. It must not make any difference."

"Difference between you and me?--nothing short of an earthquake could
do that," he replied.

"I mean with Dawn. It must not make any difference with her. It was
only a freak."

"Certainly; I would be a long time retaliating upon a _lady_, no
matter what she did to me; but when--when--" (he could not bring
himself to name it, it struck him as so disgraceful)--"she intimates
to me, as plainly as was done to-night, that she disapproves of my
presence in her house, well, a fellow would want pole-axing if he
hadn't pride to take a hint like that."

"She did not mean anything. She will be more hurt than you are."

"Mean a