"You are cruel to try to spare me this way," she gasped, and the tears
in her voice turned him to a being of great tenderness. "Can't you see
I'm desperate?--that your evasions are torturing me? Who was that man?"

"Man?" he stared at her. "It wasn't a man!"

"Oh," she said, loosing his arm and stepping back with a half earnest,
half hysterical little laugh. "Oh," she repeated, "I--you must forgive
me! I thought it was someone--I thought it might be someone who touched
me very closely, Brent!"

He stood looking down at her. How could he know she had been fearful of
Potter?

"It seems," he slowly mused, "that we've nearly stumbled on each
other's secrets. I didn't suspect you were waiting for anyone, or I
shouldn't have stayed."

"But I wasn't," she quickly retorted.

"Certainly," he drily agreed with her. "Very stupid of me to suggest
it."

She stepped around in front of him, saying frankly:

"I give you my word of honor that I did not dream anyone would come
there, nor is there a man--"

"This isn't necessary," he smiled. "I quite agree with you; and it was
nothing that could have touched you at all closely."

She flushed, then turned and started slowly on, saying in a tremulous
whisper:

"Very well, you needn't believe me." But just before reaching the house
she again turned and faced him. "It hurts, Brent," she faltered, "to
know you are thinking unkind things of me! Your own worldliness makes
you utterly unsparing!"

"I would rather not have you persist in this," he said gently. "It seems
to be one of those cases where you can't tell the truth, so why should
you go to the other extreme unnecessarily? I'm not asking you 'what is
the matter?' or if you found your cigarettes! Please dismiss it! If you
want Dale to meet you in that charmed circle, I'm sure it's a harmless
pastime."

She wheeled and left him, quickly running up the steps and into the
house; but an echo of the pleading in her voice remained, and now gently
pushed aside his ill humor which, in turn, was succeeded by a feeling of
joyous relief;--because, hidden in the rhododendron thicket, a girl had
whispered for him to have no fear--that Tom Hewlet would not threaten
his peace again. In his surprise he had caught her arm and asked why she
had come, but she drew back, whispering: "That blind girl! And, Brent,
take this!" What had she meant again by the blind girl? And why had she
thrust into his hand the little garnet pendant he had gi