they had followed
that afternoon but it might only be another part of it.

Very wearily she made her way along the bank, so mortally tired that it
seemed as if every step must be her last. There was no underbrush to
struggle with now, for she had come to a grove of pines and their fallen
needles made a carpet for her lagging feet.

The rain was nearly over, but she was too wet and too cold to take
comfort in that.

More and more laggingly she went and at last, when a hidden root tripped
her, she made no effort to rise, but lay prostrate, her cheek upon her
outflung arm, and yielded to the dark, drowsy oblivion that stole
numbingly over her.

She would be glad, she thought, never to wake.

CHAPTER IX

MRS. BLAIR REGRETS

It had taken a long time for concern to spread among the picnickers.

The sudden shower had sent them all scurrying for shelter, and when the
climb was resumed, they crossed the river on those wide, flat
stepping-stones that Johnny Byrd had missed, and re-formed in
self-absorbed little twos and threes that failed to take note of the
absence of the laggards.

When Ruth remembered to call back, "Where's Ri-Ri?" to her mother, Mrs.
Blair only glanced over her shoulder and answered, "She's coming," with
no thought of anxiety.

It did occur to her, however, somewhat later, that the girl was
loitering a little too significantly with young Byrd, and she made a
point of suggesting to Ruth, when she passed her in a short time, that
she wait for her cousin who was probably finding the climb too
strenuous.

"Who? Me?" said Ruth amazedly. "Gee, what do you want me to do--fan her?
Let Johnny do it," and cheerfully she went on photographing a group upon
a fallen log, and Mrs. Blair went on with the lawyer from Washington who
was a rapid walker.

And Ruth, with the casual thought that neither Ri-Ri nor Johnny Byrd
would relish such attendance, promptly let the thought of them dissolve
from her memory.

She was immersed in her own particular world that afternoon.

Life was at a crisis for her. Robert Martin had been drifting faster and
faster with the current of his admiration for her, and now seemed to
have been brought up on very definite solid ground. He felt he knew
where he was. And he wanted to know where Ruth was.

And Ruth found herself in that special quandary reserved for independent
American girls who want to have their cake and eat it, too.

She wanted Bob Martin, and she wante