wing day,
afar up the valley, he had set his face against her when she came in
search of him. Now he could not so affront her, though she had tricked
and affronted him. Again he was civil or coldly courteous, but he held
aloof and would not see her extended hand, whereat her underlip began to
tremble, and she laid her hand upon his arm.

"Am I _never_ to have a kind word, Sandy?" she pleaded, and there was
intoxication in the glance, the touch, and trembling lip. "Will you
never listen to my story, and know how I was tricked--how--how I lost
you?"

And bluntly he had answered, "I do not care to know. If that is all you
wish to see me about, good-night," then turned and left her. He was
raging at the thought of her flirtation with Foster. He could not
forgive that, though for a few hours, in the amaze, bewilderment, and
vague delight with which he had heard her waking words, and read the
alluring message in her eyes, and felt the warm throb of her heart,
almost against his, as they homeward drove, with Priscilla stern and
silent at the reins, he had forgotten. He had been carried back, in
spite of all, to the thrill and glamour of those wondrous days and
almost deliriously blissful nights, sailing over moonlit summer seas,
wandering under starry summer skies, with the soft breeze laden with the
perfume of the cherry blossoms stirring her dusky hair and blowing it
upon his warm young lips. But that was far, far in the past now. He
could have listened, _might_ have listened, but between her pleading
eyes--those beautiful, uplifted eyes--and him there stalked the effigy
of Stanley Foster, with that sneering, smiling, insolent, triumphant,
possessive look upon his evil face; and, though Ray hated it, it was
what he needed. Let it be remembered of him, then, that in the stillness
of the summer night when they two stood almost face to face and utterly
alone, despite her restraining hand, her beseeching touch and tone, he
turned sturdily away.

But alas for human frailty, that was not the last appeal! The summer
night was young, there was a soft wind blowing from the wrong direction,
the southeast, and the strains of music, mellowed and tempered by
distance, had been wafted fortwards from beyond the stream, soon to give
way to louder, harsher strains, and be punctuated by jeering laugh or
drunken yell. It was barely ten o'clock, yet the broad walk and many a
veranda along the row seemed deserted. Walking stiffly homeward, Ra