woods to a local station and make at once for
Washington.

Daphne quickened his uneasiness and hastened his departure. She assured
him that the others were close behind, and that nothing could suit her
better than to rest on a mossy stone that happily presented itself till
they arrived.

The Under-Secretary, transformed into the anxious and ambitious
politician, abruptly left her.

Daphne, as soon as he was gone, allowed herself the natural attitude
that fitted her thoughts. She was furiously in love and torn with
jealousy; and that love and jealousy could smart so, and cling so, was a
strange revelation to one accustomed to make a world entirely to her
liking. Her dark eyes were hollow, her small mouth had lost its colour,
and she showed that touch of something wasting and withering that
Theocritan shepherds knew in old Sicilian days. It was as though she had
defied a god--and the god had avenged himself.

Suddenly he appeared--the teasing divinity--in human shape. There was a
rustling among the brushwood fringing the river. Roger Barnes emerged
and made his way up towards her.

"I've been stalking you all this time," he said, breathless, as he
reached her, "and now at last--I've caught you!"

Daphne rose furiously. "What right have you to stalk me, as you call
it--to follow me--to speak to me even? I wish to avoid you--and I have
shown it!"

Roger looked at her. He had thrown down his hat, and she saw him against
the background of sunny wood, as the magnificent embodiment of its youth
and force. "And why have you shown it?" There was a warning tremor of
excitement in his voice. "What have I done? I haven't deserved it! You
treat me like--like a friend!--and then you drop me like a hot coal.
You've been awfully unkind to me!"

"I won't discuss it with you," she cried passionately. "You are in my
way, Mr. Barnes. Let me go back to the others!" And stretching out a
small hand, she tried to put him aside.

Roger hesitated, but only for a moment. He caught the hand, he gathered
its owner into a pair of strong arms, and bending over her, he kissed
her. Daphne, suffocated with anger and emotion, broke from
him--tottering. Then sinking on the ground beneath a tree, she burst
into sobbing. Roger, scarlet, with sparkling eyes, dropped on one knee
beside her.

[Illustration: "He caught the hand, he gathered its owner into a pair of
strong arms, and bending over her, he kissed her"]

"Daphne, I'm a ruffian! forgiv