d Sanderson with a black frown
on his face, evidently in the worst of tempers. He flung his belongings
into a bag, and departed by the 8:40 train for Berne. As Archie met the
pair, Bessie actually smiled very sweetly upon him, while Sanderson
glared as if he had never met Severance before.

"_That_ episode is evidently ended," said Archie to himself, as he
continued his walk toward Lake Thun. "I wonder if it is pure devilment
that induces her to lead people on to a proposal, and then drop them. I
suppose Charley will leave now, and we'll have no more games of
billiards together. I wonder why they all seem to think it the proper
thing to go away. I wouldn't. A woman is like a difficult peak--if you
don't succeed the first time, you should try again. I believe I shall
try half a dozen proposals with Bessie myself. If I ever come to the
point, she won't find it so easy to get rid of me as she does of all
the rest."

Meditating thus, he sat down on a bench under the trees facing the
lake. Archie wondered if the momentous question had been asked at this
spot. It seemed just the place for it, and he noticed that the gravel
on the path was much disturbed, as if by the iron-shod point of an
agitated man's cane. Then he remembered that Sanderson was carrying an
iron-pointed cane. As Archie smiled and looked about him, he saw on the
seat beside him a neat little morocco-bound book with a silver clasp.
It had evidently slipped from the insecure dress-pocket of a lady who
had been sitting there. Archie picked it up and turned it over and over
in his hands. It is a painful thing to be compelled to make excuse for
one of whom we would fain speak well, but it must be admitted that at
this point in his life Severance did what he should not have done--he
actually read the contents of the book, although he must have been
aware, before he turned the second leaf, that what was there set down
was meant for no eye save the writer's own. Archie excuses himself by
maintaining that he had to read the book before he could be sure it
belonged to anybody in particular, and that he opened it at first
merely to see if there were a name or card inside; but there is little
doubt that the young man knew from the very first whose book it was,
and he might at least have asked Miss Durand if it were hers before he
opened it. However, there is little purpose in speculating on what
might have been, and as the reading of the note-book led directly to
the u