ing others franker,
people were inclined to rebuke his credulity by restraint and
equivocation on their own part. But the evasion thus offered to her,
although only temporary, was a temptation she could not resist. And it
prolonged an interview that a ruthless revelation of the truth might
have shortened.

"She did not tell me she was going there," she replied still evasively;
"and, indeed," she added, with a burst of candor still more dangerous,
"I only learned it from the hotel clerk after she was gone. But I want
to talk to you about her relations to Van Loo," she said, with a return
of her former intensity of gaze, "and I thought we would be less subject
to interruption here than at the hotel. Only I suppose everybody knows
this place, and any of those flirting couples are likely to come here.
Besides," she added, with a little half-hysterical laugh and a slight
shiver, as she looked up at the high interlacing boughs above her head,
"it's as public as the aisles of a church, and really one feels as if
one were 'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a little
more secluded, where we could sit down," she went on, as she poked her
parasol into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth which mingled
with the carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, "and not get all
sticky and dirty?"

Barker's eyes sparkled. "I know every foot of this hill, Mrs.
Horncastle," he said, "and if you will follow me I'll take you to one of
the loveliest nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian spring now
forgotten, and I think known only to me and the birds. It's not more
than ten minutes from here; only"--he hesitated as he caught sight
of the smart French bronze buckled shoe and silken ankle which
Mrs. Horncastle's gathering up of her dainty skirts around her had
disclosed--"it may be a little rough and dusty going to your feet."

But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had already irretrievably
ruined her shoes and stockings in climbing up to him,--although Barker
could really distinguish no diminution of their freshness,--and that
she might as well go on. Whereat they both passed down the long aisle of
slope to a little hollow of manzanita, which again opened to a view of
Black Spur, but left the hotel hidden.

"What time did Kitty go?" began Barker eagerly, when they were half down
the slope.

But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine-needles,
and not only stopped an answer, but obliged Bar