as more
charm than in all the false feminine reserve in the universe.

"I did not come before," I told her, "because I felt that you might
believe me presuming too much."

"Why?" said she in the manner of a child.

I could not answer. I merely gazed at her. She was half leaning, half
sitting on the retaining wall of the park, and her skin, which was
flecked with the shadows of new maple leaves above her, was lighted not
only by the yellow rays of the afternoon sun, but also with the bright
colors which her brisk walk had brought to the soft surface. I assure
you, she made a pretty picture.

"I would have been glad to see you yesterday," she said slowly, marking
with the toe of one shoe upon the gravel. "You have been one of my
father's younger friends a long time."

"There is nothing the matter!" I cried.

"I can't tell," she said. "He is old, you know, and I can explain it in
no other way."

"He is not ill?"

"No. But if, for instance, his physician had told him he had not long to
live, and he felt something give way within him--that might cause it."

I suppressed the anxious note in my voice as I said, "Cause what? You
have not said, Miss Colfax."

She laughed. "That is true. I haven't, have I?" Serious again, she went
on. "He seems worried. Something seems to follow him about--some
thought, some apprehension, some worry."

"It is a new difficulty somewhere that has come up in the trial of a
case."

She shook her head.

"Let us walk," she said. "No, it is not that--nothing ordinary. A word
from me and he would explain. But this time when I ask, he merely smiles
and says, 'Nothing, Julie, nothing.'"

"Can it be that I am the cause?" I said before I could stop myself. "Has
he found out that we--"

"I told him," she said, "that we--"

She stopped there, too, and looked at me.

"No," she went on. "It is something else. He went out for a stroll night
before last. Usually he is gone a half-hour at least. But this time he
had hardly had time to go down the steps before I heard his key in the
door again and the feet of 'Laddie' on the hall floor. I ran out to ask
if he had forgotten anything, and it was a dreadful shock to me."

"Tell me," said I, touching her fingers with my own.

"In the first place, the dog was acting as I have never seen him act
before. I noticed that, the first thing. He was cowering and slinking
along as if he feared the most terrible punishment. But that was
nothing. It was fa