apologetic
wonder.

"Well," responded the young lady, with a long breath of melancholy
astonishment, "certainly, of all things you are--you really ARE!" With
which incoherency--apparently perfectly intelligible to herself--she
left him. She had not herself the slightest idea who the letter was
from; she only knew that Susy wanted it concealed.

The incident made little impression on Clarence, except as part of the
general uneasiness he felt in regard to his old playmate. It seemed
so odd to him that this worry should come from HER,--that she herself
should form the one discordant note in the Arcadian dream that he had
found so sweet; in his previous imaginings it was the presence of Mrs.
Peyton which he had dreaded; she whose propinquity now seemed so full
of gentleness, reassurance, and repose. How worthy she seemed of any
sacrifice he could make for her! He had seen little of her for the last
two or three days, although her smile and greeting were always ready
for him. Poor Clarence did not dream that she had found from certain
incontestable signs and tokens, both in the young ladies and himself,
that he did not require watching, and that becoming more resigned to
Susy's indifference, which seemed so general and passive in quality, she
was no longer tortured by the sting of jealousy.

Finding himself alone that afternoon, the young man had wandered
somewhat listlessly beyond the low adobe gateway. The habits of the
siesta obtained in a modified form at the rancho. After luncheon, its
masters and employees usually retired, not so much from the torrid
heat of the afternoon sun, but from the first harrying of the afternoon
trades, whose monotonous whistle swept round the walls. A straggling
passion vine near the gate beat and struggled against the wind. Clarence
had stopped near it, and was gazing with worried abstraction across the
tossing fields, when a soft voice called his name.

It was a pleasant voice,--Mrs. Peyton's. He glanced back at the gateway;
it was empty. He looked quickly to the right and left; no one was there.

The voice spoke again with the musical addition of a laugh; it seemed
to come from the passion vine. Ah, yes; behind it, and half overgrown
by its branches, was a long, narrow embrasured opening in the wall,
defended by the usual Spanish grating, and still further back, as in the
frame of a picture, the half length figure of Mrs. Peyton, very handsome
and striking, too, with a painted picture