l, reached her even through the thrumming beat of her heart.

"Peter--oh, Peter--"

Her voice failed her, and the next moment they were shaking hands
conventionally just as though they were two quite ordinary people with
whom love had nothing to do.

"I didn't know you were coming to-day," she said, making a fierce
effort to regain composure.

"I wired Kitty on the train. Hasn't she had the telegram?"

"Yes, I expect so. Only I've been out all afternoon, so knew nothing
about it. And now I've lost my way!"

"Lost your way?"

"Yes. I expected to find a footbridge round the corner."

"It's round the next one. I sent the car on with my kit, and thought
I'd walk up from the station. So we're both making for the same
bridge. It's only about two minutes' walk from here."

They strolled on side by side, Peter rather silent, and each of them
vibrantly conscious of the other's nearness. Suddenly Mallory pulled
up and a quick exclamation broke from him as he pointed ahead.

"We're done! The bridge is gone!"

Nan's eyes followed the direction of his hand. Here the river ran more
swiftly, and swollen by last nights storm of wind and rain, it had
swept away the frail old footbridge which spanned it. Only a few
decayed sticks and rotten wooden stumps remained of what had once been
known as the Lovers' Bridge--the trysting place of who shall say how
many lovers in the days of its wooden prime?

Somehow a tinge of melancholy seemed to hang about the few scraps of
wreckage. How many times the little bridge must have tempted men and
maidens to linger of a summer evening, dreaming the big dreams of
youth--visions which the spreading wings of Time bear away into the
Land of Lost Desires. Perhaps some kind hand garners them--those
tender, wonderful, courageous dreams of our wise youth and keeps them
safely for us against the Day of Reckoning, so that they may weight the
scales a little in our favour.

Peter stood looking down at the scattered fragments of the bridge with
an odd kind of gravity in his eyes. It seemed a piece of trenchant
symbolism that the Lovers' Bridge should break when he and Nan essayed
to cross it. There was a slight, whimsical smile, which held something
of pain, on his lips when he turned to her again.

"I shall have to carry you across," he said.

She shook her head.

"No, thanks. You might drop me. I can wade over."

"It's too deep for you to do that. I won't let you drop."