d she failed to
experience that sense of proportion between them so necessary for mutual
regard. Perhaps it was due to this negation, or perhaps it was owing to
her modest reserve, or perhaps to both, that whatever familiar
intercourse, sympathy or affinity ought to have existed was naturally
excluded. True friendship requires a certain equality, or at least a
feeling of proportion between those whom it would bind together. And
this she felt had not prevailed.

She did not pause to consider the correctness or the incorrectness of
her inference. It was quite enough for her to know that this spirit of
inequality existed. In his presence, however, she felt at perfect ease,
wholly oblivious of everything save her own happiness, as she could now
bear witness to, but alone with her thoughts the horrible imagining
forced itself upon her and served to widen perceptibly the gulf between
them. Reflection disconcerted her.

Happily, her enterprise respecting Anderson and his nefarious scheme had
terminated successfully. Happily, too, Stephen's misconstruction of the
affair had been corrected. No longer would he doubt her. Their fortunes
had approached the crisis. It came. Anderson had fled town; Arnold and
Peggy were removed from their lives perhaps for ever. Stephen was with
her now and she experienced a sense of happiness beyond all human
estimation. She would she could read his mind to learn there his own
feelings. Was he, too, conscious of the same delights? A reciprocal
feeling was alone necessary to complete the measure of her joy. But he
was as non-communicative as ever, totally absorbed in this terrible
business that obsessed him. Her riddle, she feared, would remain
unanswered. Patriotism, it seemed, was more pressing than love.

The canoe had drifted nearer to the shore. At Stephen's suggestion she
aroused herself from her lethargy and alighted on the bank. He soon
followed, drawing the canoe on to the shore a little to prevent its
wandering away. Marjorie walked through the grass, stooping to pick here
and there a little flower which lay smiling at her feet. Stephen stood
to one side and looked after her.

III

"Stephen," she asked, as she returned to him and stood for a moment
smiling straight at him, "will you tell me something?"

"Anything you ask," he assured her. "What do you wish to know?"

But she did not inquire further. Her eyes were fixed in earnest
attention upon the flowers which she began to arr