ot at all," declared Tom, as, apparently by accident, his hand fell on
hers and remained there. "I am telling you the truth. Since that hour
when fate led you to my room, I have thought of you almost constantly by
day, and I have dreamed of you at night. Your face has been before my
eyes continually."

Her head was bowed, so he could not see her eyes. He felt her hand
quiver in his clasp.

"Oh, I am not doing a thing!" was his mental exclamation. "She can't
resist me!"

He grew bolder with amazing rapidity. He seemed to fancy that he could
do so with this unsophisticated country girl without being "called
down."

"Miss Darling," he murmured, leaning yet nearer to her, and holding her
hand with both of his own, "do you believe in love at first sight?"

She giggled again.

"Why, I don't know," she confessed.

"I do," declared Tom. "I did not till I met you, but since that
delightful moment I have."

"Oh, rot!" the girl seemed to say.

"Eh?" exclaimed Thornton, in astonishment. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'I think not,'" was the laughing answer. "My cousin has told me
all about college fellows, and how they pretend to be all broken up over
a girl, but are giving her the dead jolly all the time."

Tom gasped, for the girl rattled off slang as if thoroughly familiar
with it. But this dampened Thornton's ardor for no more than a moment.

"I never give any one a jolly, Miss Darling," he declared, trying to
appear sincere. "Miss Darling!" he murmured. "What a sweet name! And it
suits you so well!"

"Do you think so?" laughed the girl.

"I do--I do!" palpitated Thornton. "It will be a lucky fellow who can
call you his darling! If I might----"

"Mr. Thornton, you are presuming! This is too much!"

Then Jack Diamond suddenly appeared, and asked:

"Did you call for aid, Miss Darling?"

"I was about to do so," declared the girl. "Mr. Thornton has been very
presuming and forward."

"Then Mr. Thornton shall answer to me!" came sternly from Jack's lips.
"If he is not a coward, he will come outside."

Tom turned pale and stammered. He felt like refusing to go outside, but
he feared the girl would think him a coward. Then he looked around, and
his eyes fell on Willis Paulding.

"Yes, I will go out with you," he said.

"Miss Darling" seemed to be overcome with fear.

"Don't kill him, Jack!" she whispered.

So she addressed Diamond as "Jack." That fired Thornton till he longed
to strangle the Virginian.