member? Was there anything he had forgotten about this
beloved place? He brought her the water and she made him sit beside
her, but not near, only that she need not look in his eyes.

"Richard, I thought something was love--that was not--I didn't know.
It was only liking--and--and now I--I've been so wrong--and I want to
die--Oh, I want to die! No, don't. Do you want to make me sin again?
Oh, Richard, Richard! If you had only come before! Now it is too
late." She began sobbing bitterly, and her small frame shook with her
grief.

He seized her wrists and his hand trembled. She tried to cover her
face with her hands, but he took them down and held them.

"Betty, what have you done? Tell me--tell me quick."

Then she turned her face toward him, wet with tears. "Have pity on me,
Richard. Have pity on me, Richard, for my heart is broken, and the
thing that hurts me most is that it will hurt you."

"But it wasn't yesterday when I came to you out there in the woods. I
heard you laughing, and you ran to meet me as happy as ever--"

"You did not hear me laugh once again after you came and looked in my
eyes there in the grove. It was in that instant that my heart began to
break, and now I know why. Go back to Cheyenne. Go far away and never
think of me any more. I am not worthy of you, anyway. I have let you
hold me in your arms and kiss me when I ought not. Oh, I have been so
bad--so bad! Let me hide my face. I can't look in your eyes any
more."

But he was cruel. He made her look in his eyes and tell him all the
sorrowful truth. Then at last he grew pitiful again and tried brokenly
to comfort her, to make her feel that something would intervene to
help them, but in his heart he knew that his cause was lost, and his
hopes burned within him, a heap of smoldering coals dying in their own
ashes.

He had always loved Peter Junior too well to blame him especially as
Peter could not have known what havoc he was making of his cousin's
hopes. It had all been a terrible mischance, and now they must make
the best of it and be brave. Yet a feeling of resentment would creep
into his heart in spite of his manful resolve to be fair to his
cousin, and let nothing interfere with their lifelong friendship. In
vain he told himself that Peter had the same right as he to seek
Betty's love. Why not? Why should he think himself the only one to be
considered? But there was Betty! And when he thought of her, his soul
seemed to go out of him.