t my hat," she demurred.

He looked at her sufficient parasol and took her hand, turning her
toward the road again.

"Come. We'll walk along to that grove. It is shady there. I want to see
you before we meet the others."

She yielded, and presently they stepped in at the bars to the field
where the grove invited. Under the trees she furled her parasol, and sat
down on a stone. She looked involuntarily toward the plantation, below
them to the west. There were the little clumps of nursery trees, the
green patches of seedlings, and, dotted through the working area, men
with backs bent over the rows. She wondered if Osmond were there, and
the thought gave her, if not courage, at least the defiance that answers
for it. MacLeod threw himself on the ground, and her eyes came back to
him. He looked so strong, so much a part of all living things, that he
seemed to her invincible. He spoke quite seriously, as if there were
matters between them to be gravely settled.

"I have been wondering about the bearing of these people toward you.
What explanation did you make when you came?"

"I made no explanation."

"What attitude did you take?"

"Peter introduced me to her. He went in advance, to tell her I was
coming."

"Electra?"

"Yes, Tom's sister."

"What did Peter tell her?"

"He told her I was her brother's wife."

"Ah! and she accepted you?"

"No, she has never accepted me."

"What!"

He glanced sharply up at her, and she met the look coldly. Her cheeks
were burning, but there was nothing willingly responsive in her face.
She repeated it: "Peter told her Tom had married me. I have reason to
think she told him she did not believe it."

"Has Peter said that to you?"

"No, but I think so."

"Did she send for you, to go to see her?"

"No, I went without it."

"Now, how did she receive you?" His voice betrayed an amiable curiosity.
He might have been interested merely in the vagaries of human nature,
and particularly because Electra, as a handsome, willful creature, had
paces to be noted. Rose laughed a little, in a way that jarred on him.
He liked mirth to sound like mirth.

"She was civil to me. But she has never once given me Tom's name, nor
has she allowed me to introduce myself by it."

"The old lady used it."

"That was because I followed an impulse one day and told her. She
followed an impulse and used it. She is a naughty old lady."

"Ah!" He considered for a moment. "If she did believe you, is