to rub on your
eyes to make you love the first man you would see. I meant it to be
Randall--I thought it was Randall--oh, Avery!"

Avery had been listening, between amazement and anger. Now anger
mastered amazement.

"Janet Sparhallow," she cried, "are you crazy? Or do you mean that you
went to Granny Thomas--you, a Sparhallow!--and asked her for a love
philtre to make me love Randall Burnley?"

"I didn't tell her it was for you--she thought I wanted it for
myself," moaned Janet. "Oh, we must undo it--I'll go to her again--no
doubt she knows of some way to undo the spell--"

Avery, whose rages never lasted long, threw back her dark head and
laughed ringingly.

"Janet Sparhallow, you talk as if you lived in the dark ages! The idea
of supposing that horrid old woman could give you love philtres! Why,
girl, I've always loved Bruce--always. But I thought he'd forgotten
me. And tonight when he came I found he hadn't. There's the whole
thing in a nutshell. I'm going to marry him and go home with him to
Scotland."

"And what about Randall?" said Janet, corpse-white.

"Oh, Randall--pooh! Do you suppose I'm worrying about Randall? But
you must go to him tomorrow and tell him for me, Janet."

"I will not--I will not."

"Then I'll tell him myself--and I'll tell him about you going to
Granny," said Avery cruelly. "Janet, don't stand there looking like
that. I've no patience with you. I shall be perfectly happy with
Bruce--I would have been miserable with Randall. I know I shan't sleep
a wink tonight--I'm so excited. Why, Janet, I'll be Mrs. Gordon of
Gordon Brae--and I'll have everything heart can desire and the man of
my heart to boot. What has lanky Randall Burnley with his little
six-roomed house to set against that?"

If Avery did not sleep, neither did Janet. She lay awake till dawn,
suffering such misery as she had never endured in her life before. She
knew she must go to Randall Burnley tomorrow and break his heart. If
she did not, Avery would tell him--tell him what Janet had done. And
he must not know that--he must not. Janet could not bear that thought.

* * * * *

It was a pallid, dull-eyed Janet who went through the birch wood to
the Burnley farm next afternoon, leaving behind her an excited
household where the sudden change of bridegrooms, as announced by
Avery, had rather upset everybody. Janet found Randall working in the
garden of his new house--setting out rosebushes f