soaring. Once he thought he heard from her a slight
suppressed cry, and then, after a while, astonished at her silence, he
came down to the shore of the lake.

Her eyes were closed, her cheeks were white, and her hands were cold; and
it was only after he had dashed water upon her that she revived.

"Dolly, Dolly," he murmured.

She looked at him, smiling bravely with her white lips. "Goosie, dear,"
she said, a bit wearily; "Goosie, dear, I can't. I can't dear. I get
dizzy. It makes me dreadfully sick."

He stood there on one leg, embarrassed. He wanted to take her in his arms
in great tenderness, but was held back by the tenacity of his purpose, by
the knowledge of the peril of such a course.

"Go on," said Dolly, finally. "Go, Goosie; go on and fly. I'll stay here.
With Nicodemus," she added wistfully.

And Charles-Norton, the brute, still inexorable, flapped his great wings
and went away, leaving her there in the meadow alone, with Nicodemus.

But he was to get his punishment. A few days later, returning at night,
he found Dolly truly weeping.

She was kneeling by the fire, frying-pan in hand, preparing the evening
meal; and at regular intervals two big dew-drops trickled out from her
lowered lashes and dropped upon her hand. Charles-Norton, abashed and
puzzled, went about a while, making a great show of occupation, and
pretending not to see. And then, suddenly, out of the corner of his eyes
he noted the rag which she had wrapped about the handle of the
frying-pan. It was not the usual rag. It was a filmy thing within which
ran a color like a flame. Lordy--it was the scarf which, several weeks
before, he had stolen one night from the girl on the veranda, in the inn
above the valley, and which he had since forgotten in the clothes-bag
that served him as pillow.

He kept a prudent silence, and pretended not to see it, though vaguely
tormented by the very menial service to which Dolly successively put that
once radiant scarf. And Dolly said not a word about it. She went on with
her little housekeeping routine very carefully and submissively, while
now and again a tear oozed from her long lashes. But Charles-Norton felt
vaguely now that the balance had swung, that he was fighting now at a
terrible disadvantage.

CHAPTER XVI

Charles-Norton began to grow peevish.

"Good Lord," he would growl, as he flew along the crest; "why can't she
smile once, for a change, as I leave her in the morning; why can't