ut deep.

"And how do you suppose that fact makes _me_ feel?" she asked, looking up
at him, her eyes full of tears, her heart swelling, her face scarlet.

Bayne would have given much to avoid this moment. But now that the
discussion was upon him, he said to himself that he would not traffic
with the insincerities, he would not be recreant to his own identity. He
would not fawn, and bow, and play the smug squire of dames, full of
specious flatteries, and kiss the hand that smote him.

"And how do you suppose that _I_ should think you could feel at all?" he
retorted sternly.

It was so unlike him, the rebuke--he had so ardently worshipped her, even
her faults, which were like shining endowments in his estimation--that
for the first time she felt the full poignancy of his alienation. He was
no longer hers, loving, regretting, always yearning after her, the
unattainable! Had he not said only to-day that neither of them had aught
to regret? Was this what he had really felt through the long years of
their separation? Was it she who had forfeited him, rather than he who
had lost her? She sat quite still, almost stunned by the realization, a
vague sense of bereavement upon her. A woman's faith in the constancy of
a lover is a robust endowment! It withstands change and time and many a
coercive intimation.

"I suppose," she said at length, quite humbly, "it is natural that you
should say that to me."

"You asked for it," he replied tersely.

Then they were both silent for a space, looking down at the group on the
veranda of the bungalow.

"May I have the honor and pleasure of your company, madam?" Briscoe had
asked his wife with fantastic formality.

"You may _not_!" she rejoined with a gay laugh.

"And why not?"

"I declare, Ned, you live so much up here in the wilderness, with your
bears and deer and catamounts and mountaineers, that you are likely to
forget all the _bienseance_ you ever knew. Don't you perceive that my
duties as chaperon to those lovers should lie nearest my heart?"

Then it was that he turned and cast that comprehending glance at the two
in the distant observatory. Knowing how far from Bayne's mind was the
emotion, the intention, she ascribed to him, that she would fain foster,
his face grew rueful and overcast. He shook his head with disconsolate
rebuke. "Oh, you woman, you!"

But the reproach did not strike home. Mrs. Briscoe was quite satisfied to
be a woman, and was avowedly seeking to add