just then.
Presently she turned a bright glance upon her companion, who was
gathering clusters of the fallen maple leaves, with face half averted.

"A kiss for your thoughts, beautiful blonde Madeline. I certainly
think it is ten minutes since Doctor Vaughan departed and silence fell
upon us."

She bent down, and taking her companion's head between two dimpled
hands, pulled it back, until she could look into the solemn brown
eyes.

"Come, now," coaxingly, "what were you thinking?"

Madeline extricated herself from Claire's playful grasp, and replied
with a half laugh: "It must be mutual confession then, you small
highwayman; how do you like my terms?"

"Only so so," flushing and laughing. "I was meditating the propriety
of telling you something some day, and was thinking of that something
just now, but--"

"But," mimicked Madeline, with half-hearted playfulness; "what will
you give me to relieve your embarrassment, and guess?"

"You can't," emphatically.

[Illustration: "When next we meet, I shall have other weapons!"--page
113.]

"Can't I? We will see. My dear, I fear you have left a little corner
of your heart behind you in far-away Baltimore. You didn't come to pay
your annual visit to your sister, quite heart free."

Anyone wishing to gain an insight into the character of Claire Keith
might have taken a long step in that direction could he have witnessed
her reception of this unexpected shot. She opened her dark eyes in
comic amazement, and dropping into a garden chair, exclaimed, with a
look of frank inquiry:

"Now, how ever could you guess that?"

"Because," said Madeline, in a constrained voice, and with all the
laughter fading from her eyes; "Because, I know the symptoms."

"I see," dropping her voice suddenly. "Oh, Madeline, how I wish you
could forget _that_."

"Why should I forget my love dream," scornfully, "any more than you
yours?"

"Oh, Madeline; but you said you had ceased to care for him; that you
should never mourn his loss."

"_Mourn his loss!_" turning upon Claire, fiercely. "Do you think it is
for him I mourn my _dead_; my lost happiness, my shattered dreams, my
life made a bitter, burdensome thing. Mourn him? I have for Lucian
Davlin but one feeling--hate!"

Madeline, as she uttered these last words, had turned upon Claire a
face whose fierce intensity of expression was startling. For a moment
the two gazed into each other's eyes--the one with curling lip and
somber, menaci