he larch wood."

She turned into it, and, though she had not expected this, the man
walked beside her. Still, she did not resent it. His manner was
deferential, and she liked his face, while there was, after all, no
reason why he should stay behind when he was going the same way. He
accompanied her silently for several minutes as they went on through
the gloom of the larches, where a sweet, resinous odour crept into the
still, evening air, and then he looked up as they came to a towering
pine.

"Have you got many of those trees over here?" he asked.

Then a light dawned upon the girl, for, though he had spoken without
perceptible accent, she had been slightly puzzled by something in his
speech and appearance.

"I believe they're not uncommon. You are an American?" she said.

Wyllard laughed. "No," he said. "I was born in Western Canada, but I
think I'm as English as you are, in some respects, though I never quite
realised it until to-night. It isn't exactly because my father came
from this country, either."

The girl was a trifle astonished at this answer, and still more at the
indefinite something in his manner which seemed to indicate that he
expected her to understand, as, indeed, she did. Her only dowry had
been an expensive education, and she remembered that the influence of
the isle she lived in had in turn fastened on Saxons, Norsemen,
Normans, and made them Englishmen. What was more, so far as she had
read, those who had gone out South or Westwards had carried that
influence with them and, under all their surface changes, and sometimes
their grievances against the Motherland, were, in the great essentials,
wholly English still.

"But," she said at random, "how can you be sure that I'm English?"

It was quite dark in among the trees, but she fancied there was a smile
in her companion's eyes.

"Oh," he answered simply, "you couldn't be anything else!"

She accepted this as a compliment, though she fancied that it had not
been his direct intention to pay her one. His general attitude since
she had met him scarcely suggested such a lack of sense. She was
becoming mildly interested in this stranger, but she possessed several
essentially English characteristics, and it did not appear advisable to
encourage him too much. She said nothing further, and it was he who
spoke first.

"I wonder," he said, "if you knew a young lad who went out to Canada
some few years ago. His name was Pattinson--Hen