straight in among the willows, a radiance
in his thin and lately pallid face--Blakely who quickly, yet
awkwardly, dismounted, for it still caused him pain, and then,
forgetful of his horse, came instantly to her as she stood there,
smiling, yet tremulous. The hand that sought hers fairly shook, but
that, said Angela, though she well knew better, might have been from
weakness or from riding. For a moment he did not speak. It was she who
began. She thought he should know at once.

"Did you--hear her singing--too?" she hazarded.

"Hear?--Who?" he replied, grudgingly letting go the hand because it
pulled with such determination.

"Why--Natzie, I suppose. At least--I haven't seen her," she stammered,
her cheeks all crimson now.

"Natzie, indeed!" he answered, in surprise, turning slowly and
studying the opposite willows. "It is only a day or two since they
came in. I thought she'd soon be down." Obviously her coming caused
him neither embarrassment nor concern. "She still has a notecase of
mine. I suppose you heard?" And his clear blue eyes were fastened on
her lovely, downcast face.

"Something. Not much," she answered, drawing back a little, for he
stood so close to her she could have heard the beating of his
heart--but for her own. All was silence over there in the opposite
willows, but so it was the day Natzie had so suddenly appeared from
nowhere, and he saw the hurried glance she sent across the pool.

"Has she worried you?" he began, "has she been--" spying, he was going
to say, and she knew it, and grew redder still with vexation. Natzie
could claim at least that she was not without a shining example had
she come there to spy, but Blakely had that to say to her that
deserved undivided attention, and there is a time when even one's
preserver and greatest benefactor may be _de trop_.

"Will you wait--one moment?" he suddenly asked. "I'll go to the rocks
yonder and call her," and then, almost as suddenly, the voice was
again uplifted in the same weird, barbaric song, and the singer had
gone from the depths of the opposite thicket and was somewhere farther
up stream, still hidden from their gaze--still, possibly, ignorant of
Angela's presence. The brown eyes were at the moment following the
tall, white form, moving slowly through the winding, faintly-worn
pathway toward the upper shallows where, like stepping stones, the big
rocks stretched from shore to shore, and she was startled to note that
the moment the s