uld not
have said under ordinary circumstances. My dear, I quite
understand-quite, and I'll try to forget--you needn't fear."

"Do you think you can?" she asked, turning to look at me.

"I can but try," I answered. Now as I spoke I wasn't sure, but I
thought I saw the pale ghost of the dimple by her mouth.

We walked back side by side along the river-path, very silently, for
the most part, yet more than once I caught her regarding me covertly
and with a puzzled air.

"Well?" I said at last, tentatively.

"I was wondering why you did it, Dick? Oh, it was mean! cruel! wicked!
How could you?"

"Oh, well"--and I shrugged my shoulders, anathematising the Imp mentally
the while.

"If I hadn't noticed that the rope was freshly cut, I should have
thought it an accident," she went on.

"Naturally!" I said.

"And then, again, how came you in the boat?"

"To be sure!" I nodded.

"Still, I can scarcely believe that you would willfully jeopardise both
our lives--my life!"

"A man who would do such a thing," I exclaimed, carried away by the
heat of the moment, "would be a--a--"

"Yes," said Lisbeth quickly, "he would."

"--And utterly beyond the pale of all forgiveness!"

"Yes," said Lisbeth, "of course."

"And," I was beginning again, but meeting her searching glance,
stopped. "And you forgave me, Lisbeth," I ended.

"Did I?" she said, with raised brows.

"Didn't you?"

"Not that I remember."

"In the boat?"

"I never said so?"

"Not in words, perhaps, but you implied as much." Lisbeth had the grace
to blush.

"Do I understand that I am not forgiven after all?"

"Not until I know why you did such a mad, thoughtless trick," she
answered, with that determined set of her chin which I knew so well.

That I should thus shoulder the responsibility for the Imp's misdeeds
was ridiculous, and wrong as it was unjust, for if ever boy deserved
punishment that boy was the Imp. And yet, probably because he was the
Imp, or because of that school-boy honour which forbids "sneaking," and
which I carried with me still, I held my peace; seeing which, Lisbeth
turned and left me.

I stood where I was, with head bent in an attitude suggestive of
innocence, broken hopes, and gentle resignation, but in vain; she never
once looked back. Still, martyr though I was, the knowledge that I had
immolated myself upon the altar of friendship filled me with a sense of
conscious virtue that I found not ill-pleasing. Howbeit,