ir advance; and when she
stopped finally before a gate, and, opening it, went into a yard shut
off from the street by a row of dwarf cedars, Warwick had already
discounted in some measure the surprise he would have felt at seeing
her enter there had he not walked down Front Street behind her. There
was still sufficient unexpectedness about the act, however, to give him
a decided thrill of pleasure.

"It must be Rena," he murmured. "Who could have dreamed that she would
blossom out like that? It must surely be Rena!"

He walked slowly past the gate and peered through a narrow gap in the
cedar hedge. The girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a gray,
unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken by dormer windows. The
trace of timidity he had observed in her had given place to the more
assured bearing of one who is upon his own ground. The garden walks
were bordered by long rows of jonquils, pinks, and carnations,
inclosing clumps of fragrant shrubs, lilies, and roses already in
bloom. Toward the middle of the garden stood two fine magnolia-trees,
with heavy, dark green, glistening leaves, while nearer the house two
mighty elms shaded a wide piazza, at one end of which a honeysuckle
vine, and at the other a Virginia creeper, running over a wooden
lattice, furnished additional shade and seclusion. On dark or wintry
days, the aspect of this garden must have been extremely sombre and
depressing, and it might well have seemed a fit place to hide some
guilty or disgraceful secret. But on the bright morning when Warwick
stood looking through the cedars, it seemed, with its green frame and
canopy and its bright carpet of flowers, an ideal retreat from the
fierce sunshine and the sultry heat of the approaching summer.

The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she bent over it, her profile
was clearly outlined. She held the flower to her face with a
long-drawn inhalation, then went up the steps, crossed the piazza,
opened the door without knocking, and entered the house with the air of
one thoroughly at home.

"Yes," said the young man to himself, "it's Rena, sure enough."

The house stood on a corner, around which the cedar hedge turned,
continuing along the side of the garden until it reached the line of
the front of the house. The piazza to a rear wing, at right angles to
the front of the house, was open to inspection from the side street,
which, to judge from its deserted look, seemed to be but little used.
T