ail dim
and uncertain--at times apparently breaking off, or intersecting
another trail as faint as itself. Believing that Miss Nellie had
diverged from the highway only as a momentary excursion into the shade,
and that she would not dare to penetrate its more sombre and unknown
recesses, he kept within sight of the skirting plain. By degrees the
sedate influence of the silent vaults seemed to depress him. The ardor
of the chase began to flag. Under the calm of their dim roof the fever
of his veins began to subside; his pace slackened; he reasoned more
deliberately. It was by no means probable that the young woman in a
brown duster was Nellie; it was not her habitual traveling dress; it
was not like her to walk unattended in the road; there was nothing in
her tastes and habits to take her into this gloomy forest, allowing
that she had even entered it; and on this absolute question of her
identity the two witnesses were divided. He stopped irresolutely, and
cast a last, long, half-despairing look around him. Hitherto he had
given that part of the wood nearest the plain his greatest attention.
His glance now sought its darker recesses. Suddenly he became
breathless. Was it a beam of sunlight that had pierced the groined roof
above, and now rested against the trunk of one of the dimmer, more
secluded giants? No, it was moving; even as he gazed it slipped away,
glanced against another tree, passed across one of the vaulted aisles,
and then was lost again. Brief as was the glimpse, he was not
mistaken--it was the figure of a woman.

In another moment he was on her track, and soon had the satisfaction of
seeing her reappear at a lesser distance. But the continual
intervention of the massive trunks made the chase by no means an easy
one, and as he could not keep her always in sight he was unable to
follow or understand the one intelligent direction which she seemed to
invariably keep. Nevertheless, he gained upon her breathlessly, and,
thanks to the bark-strewn floor, noiselessly. He was near enough to
distinguish and recognize the dress she wore, a pale yellow, that he
had admired when he first saw her. It was Nellie, unmistakably; if it
were she of the brown duster, she had discarded it, perhaps for greater
freedom. He was near enough to call out now, but a sudden nervous
timidity overcame him; his lips grew dry. What should he say to her?
How account for his presence? "Miss Nellie, one moment!" he gasped. She
darted forward