o or three times, but, genteelly sequestered as was the road
leading to Brabazon Lodge, some stray footman or housemaid might appear
on the scene, from some of the neighboring establishments, at any
moment, so she was obliged to draw herself away at last.

"There!" she said, "you must let me take your arm and walk on now, and
you must tell me all about things. I have a few minutes to spare, and I
have _so_ wanted you," heaving a weary little sigh, and holding his arm
very tightly indeed.

"Dolly," he asked, abruptly, "are you sure of that?"

The other small hand clasped itself across his sleeve in an instant.

"Sure?" she answered. "Sure that I have wanted you? I have been nearly
_dying_ for you!" with some affectionate extravagance.

"Are you sure," he put it to her, "quite sure that you have not
sometimes forgotten me for an hour or so?"

"No," she answered, indignantly, "not for a single second;" which was a
wide assertion.

"Not," he prompted her, somewhat bitterly, "when the MacDowlas gives
dinner-parties, and you find yourself a prominent feature, 'young
person,' as you are? Not when you wear the white merino, and 'heavy
swells' admire you openly?"

"No," shaking her head in stout denial of the imputation. "Never.
I think about you from morning until night; and the fact is," in a
charming burst of candor, "I actually wake in the night and think about
you. There! are you satisfied now?"

It would have been impossible to remain altogether unconsoled and
unmoved under such circumstances, but he could not help trying her
again.

"Dolly," he said, "does Gowan never make you forget me?"

Then she saw what he meant, and flushed up to her forehead, drawing her
hand away and speaking hotly.

"Oh!" she said, "it is _that_, is it?"

"Yes," he answered her, "it is that."

Then they stopped in their walk, and each looked at the other,--Griffith
at Dolly, with a pale face and much of desperate, passionate appeal in
his eyes; Dolly at Griffith, with her small head thrown back in sudden
defiance.

"I am making you angry and rousing you, Dolly," he said; "but I cannot
help it. There is scarcely a week passes in which I do not hear that
he--that fellow--has managed to see you in one way or another. He can
always see you," savagely. "_I_ don't see you once a month."

"Ah!" said Dolly, with cruel deliberation, "_this_ is what Aimee meant
when she told me to be careful, and think twice before I did things. I
see n