e. Certain old fishermen trailed belatedly up the bank.
Others sat spick and span and ready for supper on the porch.

Brinsley Tyson over the top of his newspaper hailed Richard.

"There's a telephone call for you. They've been trying to get you for an
hour."

He went in at once, and coming out told Anne good-night. "Thank you for a
happy afternoon," he said.

But she missed something in his voice, something that had been there when
they had walked in the wood.

She watched him as he went away, square-shouldered and strong on his big
white horse. She had a troubled sense that things had in some fateful and
tragic way gone wrong with her afternoon, but it was not yet given to her
to know that young Richard on his big white horse was riding out of her
life.

It was after supper that Geoffrey asked her to go out on the river with
him.

"Not to-night. I'm tired."

"Just a little minute, Mistress Anne. To see the moon come up over the
island. Please." So she consented.

Helping her into the boat, Geoffrey's hands were shaking. The boat swept
out from the pier in a wide curve, and he drew a long breath. He had her
now--it would be a great adventure--like a book--better than any book.

Primitive man in prehistoric days carried his woman off captive under his
arm. Geoffrey, pursuing modern methods, had borrowed Brinsley's boat. A
rug was folded innocently on the cushions; in a snug little cupboard
under the stern seat were certain supplies--a great adventure, surely!

And now the boat was under the bridge; the signal lights showed red and
green. Then as they slipped around the first island there was only the
silver of the moonshine spread out over the waters.

Geoffrey stopped the motor. "We'll drift and talk."

"You talk," she told him, "and I'll listen, and we mustn't be too late."

"What is too late?"

"I told you I would stay just a little minute."

"There is no real reason why we shouldn't stay as long as we wish. You
are surely not so prim that you are doing it for propriety."

"You know I am not prim."

"Yes you are. You are prim and Puritan and sometimes you are a prig. But
I like you that way, Mistress Anne. Only to-night I shall do as I
please."

"Don't be silly."

"Is it silly to love you--why?"

He argued it with her brilliantly--so that it was only when the red and
green lights of a second bridge showed ahead of them that she said,
sharply, "We are miles away from Bower's; we must go back