d ever meet
again," he returned, in a tone so measured that the girl seemed to hear
the ring of the conventicle in it.

"Should you, BROTHER Wayne?" she said, imitating him. "Well, let me tell
you that you are the one man on the Bar that Sandy has taken a fancy
to."

Madison's sallow cheek colored a little, but he did not speak.

"Well!" continued Mrs. McGee impatiently. "I don't believe he'd object
to your comin' here to see me--if you cared."

"But I wouldn't care to come, unless he first knew that I had been once
engaged to you," said Madison gravely.

"Perhaps he might not think as much of that as you do," retorted the
woman pertly. "Every one isn't as straitlaced as you, and every girl has
had one or two engagements. But do as you like--stay at home if you want
to, and sing psalms and read the Scriptures to that younger brother of
yours! All the same, I'm thinkin' he'd rather be out with the boys."

"My brother is God-fearing and conscientious," said Madison quickly.
"You do not know him. You have never seen him."

"No," said Mrs. McGee shortly. She then gave a little shiver (that was,
however, half simulated) in her wet garments, and added: "ONE saint was
enough for me; I couldn't stand the whole church, Mad."

"You are catching cold," he said quickly, his whole face brightening
with a sudden tenderness that seemed to transfigure the dark features.
"I am keeping you here when you should be changing your clothes. Go, I
beg you, at once."

She stood still provokingly, with an affectation of wiping her arms and
shoulders and sopping her wet dress with clusters of moss.

"Go, please do--Safie, please!"

"Ah!"--she drew a quick, triumphant breath. "Then you'll come again to
see me, Mad?"

"Yes," he said slowly, and even more gravely than before.

"But you must let me show you the way out--round under those
trees--where no one can see you come." She held out her hand.

"I'll go the way I came," he said quietly, swinging himself silently
from the nearest bough into the stream. And before she could utter a
protest he was striking out as silently, hand over hand, across the
current.

CHAPTER II.

A week later Madison Wayne was seated alone in his cabin. His supper
table had just been cleared by his Chinese coolie, as it was getting
late, and the setting sun, which for half an hour had been persistently
making a vivid beacon of his windows for the benefit of wayfarers along
the river bank, had a