s kind
and patient with the little ghost. I should be far kinder, gentler--"

She had felt herself going fast, and had almost yielded to the impulse
to exclaim, "You, Graydon, are the one who did not return my love; and
although your love has been so brief and untested compared with mine,
I will trust you;" when voices were heard on the same path by
which they had come, and the figures of other ramblers were seen
indistinctly through the foliage.

She gave his hand a strong pressure, seized her alpenstock, and
hastened swiftly forward. The path soon afterward emerged on the
public road. The breeze cooled her hot cheeks, kissed away her tears,
and half an hour later they approached the hotel, chatting as quietly
as the strictest conventionality would require.

CHAPTER XXXIX

MY TRUE FRIEND

They found that Mr. Muir had arrived, and no family party in the long
supper-room appeared more free from disturbing thoughts and memories
than the one gathered at the banker's table. In Madge the keen-eyed
man could detect nothing that was unusual, and in Graydon only a trace
of the dignity and seriousness which would inevitably follow some
deep experience or earnest purpose. They all spent the evening and the
greater part of the following day together, and Madge was touched more
than once by observing that Graydon sought unobtrusively to comply
with even her imagined wishes and to enhance the point and interest of
her spoken thoughts.

In answer to his direct question she had acknowledged the absolute
truth, and yet it had proved more misleading than all the disguises
which her maidenly reserve had compelled her to adopt. It seemed now
that she would have no further trouble with him--that he had defined
his purpose, and would abide by it. She was glad that she had not
yielded to his appeal and rewarded him in the first consciousness
of his new regard for her. This feeling had seemed too recent,
tumultuous, and full of impulse, and did not accord with her earnest,
chastened spirit, that had attained the goal of its hope by such
patient endeavor. She preferred that the first strong outflow from
his heart should find wide, deep channels, and that his love for her
should take the same recognized place in his life that her love had
occupied so long in her own. She also had a genuine and feminine
reluctance that the suitor of Stella Wildmere should be known as her
lover so speedily, and something more and deeper than good