spirit was in his attitude, even listless despair,
as he stood in the vacant apartment, looking down at the silver bowl on
the table, filled with white roses and galax leaves, freshly gathered; so
much of the thought in his mind was expressed in his face, distinct and
definite in the firelight, despite the clouds at the dim window, that
Lillian Royston, descending the stair unperceived, read in its lineaments
an illuminated text of the past.

"Oh, Julian, Julian, I was cruel to you--I was cruel to you!" she cried
out impulsively in a poignant voice.

He started violently at the sound, coming back indeed through the years.
He looked up at her, seeing as in a dream her slim figure clad in a gray
cloth gown, on the landing of the stair. Her face was soft and young and
wistful; her aspect had conquered the years; she was again the girl he
knew of old, whom he had fancied he had loved, crying out in the
constraining impetus of a genuine emotion, "I was cruel to you! I was
cruel to you!"

The next moment he was all himself of to-day--cool, confident, serene,
with that suggestion of dash and vigor that characterized his movements.
"Why, don't mention it, I beg," he said with a quiet laugh and his
smooth, incidental society manner, as if it were indeed a matter of
trifling consequence. Then, "I am sure neither of us has anything to
regret." The last sentence he thought a bit enigmatical, and he said to
Briscoe afterward that, although strictly applicable, he did not quite
know what he had meant by it. For the door had opened suddenly, and his
host had inopportunely entered at the instant. Although Briscoe had
affected to notice nothing, he heard the final sentence, and he was
disposed to berate Bayne when the awkward breakfast was concluded and the
party had scattered.

"You were mighty sarcastic, sure," he observed to Bayne over their cigars
in the veranda, for with all the world submerged in the invisibilities of
the mists the day's hunt was necessarily called off.

"Why, I was rattled," Bayne declared. "I did not expect to hear her
upbraid herself."

"She is _so_ sensitive," said Briscoe compassionately. He had heard
from his wife the interpretation that she had placed on Bayne's sudden
visit to this secluded spot, and though he well knew its falsity, he
could but sympathize with her hope. "Lillian is very sensitive."

"I think it is up to me to be sensitive on that subject; but her
sensitiveness at this late day is