me!"

Stephen was calm.

"I expected it," he answered.

She gave a step backward, and raised her frightened eyes to his.

"You expected it?" she faltered.

"I can't say why," he said quickly, "but it seems to me as if this had
happened before. I know that I am talking nonsense--"

Virginia was trembling now. And her answer was not of her own choosing.

"It has happened before," she cried. "But where? And when?"

"It may have been in a dream," he answered her, "that I saw you as you
stand there by my bridle. I even know the gown you wear."

She put her hand to her forehead. Had it been a dream? And what mystery
was it that sent him here this night of all nights? She could not even
have said that it was her own voice making reply.

"And I--I have seen you, with the sword, and the powdered hair, and the
blue coat and the buff waistcoat. It is a buff waistcoat like that my
great-grandfather wears in his pictures."

"It is a buff waistcoat," he said, all sense of strangeness gone.

The roses she held dropped on the gravel, and she put out her hand
against his horse's flank. In an instant he had leaped from his saddle,
and his arm was holding her. She did not resist, marvelling rather at
his own steadiness, nor did she then resent a tenderness in his voice.

"I hope you will forgive me--Virginia," he said. "I should not have
mentioned this. And yet I could not help it."

She looked up at him rather wildly.

"It was I who stopped you," she said; "I was waiting for--"

"For whom?"

The interruption brought remembrance.

"For my cousin, Mr. Colfax," she answered, in another tone. And as she
spoke she drew away from him, up the driveway. But she had scarcely
taken five steps whey she turned again, her face burning defiance. "They
told me you were not coming," she said almost fiercely. "Why did you
come?"

It was a mad joy that Stephen felt.

"You did not wish me to come?" he demanded.

"Oh, why do you ask that?" she cried. "You know I would not have been
here had I thought you were coming. Anne promised me that you would not
come."

What would she not have given for those words back again

Stephen took astride toward her, and to the girl that stride betokened a
thousand things that went to the man's character. Within its compass the
comparison in her mind was all complete. He was master of himself when
he spoke.

"You dislike me, Miss Carvel," he said steadily. "I do not blame you.
Nor do I flatter