id. "I want
to go home, Doctor Barnes. Please let me pass you."

"May I go with you?"

"I would rather not."

"Well, that's frank," he said, amusement and chagrin struggling for the
uppermost. "I wonder I don't stalk angrily away----"

"I wish you would."

Roger Barnes threw back his head and laughed. "I wish you would give some
other girls a leaf out of your book," he said. "The more you turn me down
the more ardently I long to be with you; while the opposite sort of
thing--I'll tell you, Miss Redding, if you want to be rid of me try these
tactics: Say with a languishing smile, 'Oh, Doctor Barnes, won't you take
me a little way down this lovely path?' Perhaps that will accomplish your
ends. I've often felt an instant desire not to do the thing I'm begged
to."

"'Oh, Doctor Barnes,'" said Rachel Redding--and he caught the mischief in
her tone--even Rachel could be mischievous, as Juliet had said--"'won't
you take me a little way down this lovely path?'"

"With the greatest pleasure in the world," replied the doctor promptly,
and stood aside to let her pass him. Whereupon she slipped by him, and
before he could realise that she had gone was running fleetly away in the
twilight down the winding, willow-hung path. With an exclamation he was
off after her, but though he dashed at the pace of a hunter through the
intricacies of the way he presently discovered that he was following
nothing but the summer breeze rustling the willow leaves and wafting into
his face the breath of new-cut hay, the aftermath of late July. He stopped
at length and stared about him, baffled and half angry.

"There never was a girl like you," he muttered. "If you are deliberately
trying to make men mad to get you you are succeeding infuriatingly well.
If I catch you to-night it will be your fault if I tell you what I think
of you. I'll tell you now, for I suppose you are hiding somewhere in this
undergrowth till I give it up and you can get away home. You shall listen
to me if you are here, for you can't help yourself."

He was speaking in a low, even tone, walking slowly along the path and
peering sharply into the bushes on both sides. Suddenly he stood still. He
had detected a spot beside a low-hanging willow which showed nearly white
in the deepening darkness. Rachel was wearing white to-night, he
remembered. His heart quickened its paces and he paused an instant to get
past a certain tightening in his throat.

Then he bent forward and