you came, Miss Castle; hope you'll let me show you where the big fellows
lie."

"You mean the fish," she said, with composure.

The shock of suddenly realizing that this man was the man she had to
marry confused her; she made an effort to get things back into proper
perspective, for the river was swimming before her eyes, and in her
ears rang a strangely pleasant voice--Crawford's--saying all sorts of
good-humored things, which she heard but scarcely comprehended.

Instinctively she raised her hands to touch her disordered hair; she
stood there naively twisting it into shape again, her eyes constantly
reverting to the sun-tanned face before her.

"And I have the pleasure of knowing your guardian, Mr. Garcide, very
slightly--in a business way," he was saying, politely.

"Ophir Steel," she said.

He laughed.

"Oh, we are making a great battle," he said. "I'm only hoping we may
come to an understanding with Mr. Garcide."

"I thought you had already come to an understanding," she observed,
calmly.

"Have we? I hope so; I had not heard that," he said, quickly. "How did
you hear?"

Without warning she flushed scarlet to her neck; and she was as amazed
as he at the surging color staining her white skin.

She could not endure that--she could not face him--so she bent her head
a little in recognition of his presence and stepped past him, out along
the river-bank.

He looked after her, wondering what he could have said.

She wondered, too, and her wonder grew that instead of self-pity,
repugnance, and deep dread, she should feel such a divine relief from
the terror that had possessed her.

Now at least she knew the worst. This was the man!

She strove to place him, to recall his face. She could not. All along
she had pictured Crawford as an older man. And this broad-shouldered,
tanned young fellow was Crawford, after all! Where could her eyes have
been? How absurd that her indifference should have so utterly blinded
her!

She stood a moment on the lawn, closing her eyes.

Oh, now she had no difficulty in recalling his face--in fact the
difficulty was to shut it out, for it was before her eyes, open or
shut--it was before her when she entered her bedroom and sank into a
cushioned chair by the breezy window. And she took her burning cheeks in
both hands and rested her elbows on her knees.

Truly terror had fled. It shamed her to find herself thanking God that
her fate was to lie in the keeping of this youn