e skin. At the
water works she turned into the long, straight road that leads to North
Lake, and touched Crusader with the crop, checking him slightly at the
same time. With a little toss of his head he broke from a trot into a
canter, and then, as she leaned forward in the saddle, into his long,
even gallop. There was no one to see; she would not be conspicuous, so
Laura gave the horse his head, and in another moment he was carrying
her with a swiftness that brought the water to her eyes, and that sent
her hair flying from her face. She had him completely under control. A
touch upon the bit, she knew, would suffice to bring him to a
standstill. She knew him to be without fear and without nerves, knew
that his every instinct made for her safety, and that this morning's
gallop was as much a pleasure to him as to his rider. Beneath her and
around her the roadway and landscape flew; the cold air sang in her
ears and whipped a faint colour to her pale cheeks; in her deep brown
eyes a frosty sparkle came and went, and throughout all her slender
figure the blood raced spanking and careering in a full, strong tide of
health and gaiety.

She made a circle around North Lake, and came back by way of the Linne
monument and the Palm House, Crusader ambling quietly by now, the groom
trotting stolidly in the rear. Throughout all her ride she had seen no
one but the park gardeners and the single grey-coated, mounted
policeman whom she met each time she rode, and who always touched his
helmet to her as she cantered past. Possibly she had grown a little
careless in looking out for pedestrians at the crossings, for as she
turned eastward at the La Salle statue, she all but collided with a
gentleman who was traversing the road at the same time.

She brought her horse to a standstill with a little start of
apprehension, and started again as she saw that the gentleman was
Sheldon Corthell.

"Well," she cried, taken all aback, unable to think of formalities, and
relapsing all at once into the young girl of Barrington, Massachusetts,
"well, I never--of all the people."

But, no doubt, she had been more in his mind than he in hers, and a
meeting with her was for him an eventuality not at all remote. There
was more of pleasure than of embarrassment in that first look in which
he recognised the wife of Curtis Jadwin.

The artist had changed no whit in the four years since last she had
seen him. He seemed as young as ever; there was the sam