Larramies would not listen to my leaving that day. There were a
good many people in the house, but there was room enough for me, and,
when we had left the bear without solving the problem of his final
disposition, there were so many things to be done and so many things
to be said that it was late in the afternoon before Miss Edith found
the opportunity of speaking to me for which she had been waiting so
long.

"Well," said she, as we walked together away from the golf links, but
not towards the house, "what have you to report?"

"Report?" I repeated, evasively.

"Yes, you promised to do that, and I always expect people to fulfil
their promises to me. You came here by the way of the Holly Sprig Inn,
didn't you?"

I assented. "A very roundabout way," she said. "It would have been
seven miles nearer if you had come by the cross-road. But I suppose
you thought you must go there first."

"That is what I thought," I answered.

"Have you been thinking about her all the time you have been away?"

"Nearly all the time."

"And actually cut off a big slice of your vacation in order to see
her?"

I replied that this was precisely the state of the case.

"But, after all, you weren't successful. You need not tell me anything
about that--I knew it as soon as I saw you this morning. But I will
ask you to answer one thing: Is the decision final?"

I sighed--I could not help it, but she did not even smile. "Yes," I
said, "the affair is settled definitely."

For a minute or so we walked on silently, and then she said: "I do not
want you to think I am hard-hearted, but I must say what is in me. I
congratulate you, and, at the same time, I am sorry for her."

At this amazing speech I turned suddenly towards her, and we both
stopped.

"Yes," said she, standing before me with her clear eyes fixed upon my
face, "you are to be congratulated. I think it is likely she is the
most charming young woman you are ever likely to meet--and I know a
great deal more about her than you do, for I have known her for a long
time, and your acquaintance is a very short one--she has qualities you
do not know anything about; she is lovely! But for all that it would
be very wrong for you to marry her, and I am glad she had sense enough
not to let you do it."

"Why do you say that?" I asked, a little sharply.

"Of course you don't like it," she replied, "but it is true. She may
be as lovely as you think her--and I am sure she is. She may be of