"It is Larry. If I didn't know the kind of man he is, I
would not let you go. Kiss me, Hetty."

Hetty stood still a second, for she understood, and then very quietly put
both hands on Flora Schuyler's shoulders and kissed her.

"It can't be very wrong; and you have been a good friend, Flo," she said.

She turned, and Flora Schuyler, standing still, saw her slim figure flit
across a strip of frost-bleached sod as the moon shone through.

XXIX

HETTY DECIDES

It was in a pale flash of silvery light that Larry saw the girl against
the gloom of the trees. The moaning of the birches and roar of the river
drowned the faint sound her footsteps made, and she came upon him so
suddenly, statuesque and slender in her trailing evening dress and
etherealized by the moonlight, that as he looked down on the blanched
whiteness of her upturned face, emphasized by the dusky hair, he almost
fancied she had materialized out of the harmonies of the night. For a
moment he sat motionless, with the rifle glinting across his saddle, and a
tightening grip of the bridle as the big horse flung up its head, and
then, with a sudden stirring of his blood, moved his foot in the stirrup
and would have swung himself down if Hetty had not checked him.

"No!" she said. "Back into the shadow of the trees!"

Larry, seeing the fear in her face, touched the horse with his heel, and
wheeled it with its head towards the house. He could see the warm gleam
from the windows between the birches. Then, he turned to the girl, who
stood gasping at his stirrup.

"You sent for me, dear, and I have come. Can't you give me just a minute
now?" he said.

"No," said Hetty breathlessly, "you must go. The Sheriff is here waiting
for you!"

Larry laughed a little scornful laugh, and slackening the bridle, sat
still, looking down on her very quietly.

"I don't understand," he said. "You sent for me!"

"No," the girl again gasped. "Oh, Larry, go away! Clavering and the others
who are most bitter against you are in the house."

Instinctively Larry moved his hand on the rifle and glanced towards the
building. He could see it dimly, but no sound from it reached him, and
Hetty, looking up, saw his face grow stern.

"Still," he persisted, with a curious quietness, "somebody sent a note to
me!"

"Yes," said Hetty, turning away from him, "it was my wicked maid.
Clavering laid the trap for you."

The man sat very still a moment, and then bent with a swift res