t, less danger for them both;
three years of absence would help materially in this matter in which he
felt himself too deeply involved. Then, in the very face of this
acknowledgment, he could not help a thought that whitened his cheek as
it formulated itself instantaneously in his consciousness: if she were
three years in Europe, there would be opportunity for him to see her
sometime.

He knew the thought could not be uttered in the girl's pure presence;
yet, with many others, he held that a woman, if she loves a man
absorbingly, passionately, is capable of any sacrifice--would she?
Hardly; she was so high-spirited, so pure in thought--yet she loved him,
and after all love was the great Subduer. But no--it could never be;
this was his decision. He rowed out into the lake.

Why must a man's action prove so often the slave of his thought!

He was passing the arm of Mesantic that leads to "lily-pad reach". He
turned to look up the glinting curve. Was she there?--should he seek
her?

He backed water on the instant. The boat responded like a live thing,
quivered, came to a partial rest--stopped, undulating on the surface
roughened by the powerful leverage of the oars. Champney sat motionless,
the dripping blades suspended over the water. He knew that in all
probability the girl was there in "lily-pad reach". Should he seek her?
Should he go?--Should he?

The hands that held the steady oars quivered suddenly, then gripped them
as in a vise; the man's face flushed; he bent to the right oar, the
craft whirled half way on her keel; the other oar fell--swiftly and
powerfully the boat shot ahead up "lily-pad reach".

Reason, discretion, judgment razed in an instant from the table of
consciousness; desire rampant, the desire of possession to which
intellect, training, environment, even that goodward-turning which men
under various aspects term religion, succumb in a moment like the
present one in which Champney Googe was bending all his strength to the
oars that he might be the sooner with the girl he loved.

He did not ask himself what next? He gave no thought to aught but
reaching the willows as soon as he could. His eye was on the glinting
curve before him; he rounded it swiftly--her boat was there tied to the
stake among the arrowhead; his own dragged through the lily-pads beside
it; he sprang out, ran up the bank--

"Aileen--Aileen--where are you?" he called eagerly, impatiently, and
sought about him to find her.