young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at
the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for
the splash and babble of the creek.

Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses,
though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She
raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through
the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop
tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and
dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It
was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he
leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley.

He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly,
and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the
bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to
steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her
eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the
undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused
by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he
crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big
body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of
legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his
hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and
still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand
that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and
poised for a spring.

Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little
vale and sounding back from the cliff.

"Oh! Oh!" and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first
upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon
the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through
the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the
bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hurrying toward
her.

"What is it, Miss? Did you call?"

"No; it was nothing, Thomas--nothing at all," and she mounted and turned
toward home.

Her heart was still pounding with excitement and she walked her horse to
gain composure. Twice, in circumstances most unusual and disquieting, she
had witnessed an attack on John Armitage by an u