It was a beautiful sight, and yet it drenched him with infinite pain. He
was tempted to attract their attention, to take them into his arms
again, but he checked the impulse.

"What is the use?" he muttered. "They are hers, not mine--_his_ and
hers, not _mine_ and hers."

Softly he moved away. Presently he came to a fallen tree and sat down
on it. He could no longer hear the children's voices. However, another
sound broke the stillness about him. It was the rapid tread of some one
hurrying through the wood in his direction. The branches of the bushes
in front of him parted and Tilly stood facing him, her cheeks and brow
flushed and damp from rapid walking. That she could be so beautiful as
now he had never dreamed possible. The years had added indescribable
charm and grace to her every movement, feature, and expression.

"Oh, John!" she cried, holding out her hands as appealingly and naively
as of old, "the children are lost! They started for your mother's cabin,
but haven't been there. There are dangerous places in this wood, and--"

He smiled reassuringly as he took her hands. "They are all right," he
said. "They are just over there. I saw them only a moment ago."

Their hands clung together, but neither of them was cognizant of the
fact. It was as if not a day had elapsed since they had parted.
Forgetting every law of propriety, he drew her into his arms. Her
uncovered head went as of old to his shoulder, and he was about to kiss
her throbbing lips when, with her hand to his mouth, she suddenly
checked him.

"No, no, John!" she said, and she disengaged herself from his embrace
with a firm, resolute movement. "I understand how you feel, but you
mustn't-- I mustn't. I want to--yes, yes, I want to kiss you, but it
would be wrong."

"Yes, it would be wrong," he groaned, and turned white. He sat down on
the trunk of the tree. She stood before him. Neither spoke for a while,
and the prattling voices of the children sounded on the warm, still
air.

"I'm afraid I have pained you," Tilly said, after a moment, and she put
her hand on his shoulder as if to make him look at her. "I wish I knew
some other way, but I know of none."

"There is no other way," he declared, his hungry eyes now on her face,
the marvel of which still held him enthralled. In all his dreams of her
she had never appeared so transcendently wonderful.

"How could she ever have been mine--actually mine?" he asked himself
from the abyss into whic