n.

"Yes, and I shall not be able to come again for a long time. Say to Miss
Swendon--But no. I will go and bid her good-bye."

He met her as she was crossing the plank thrown across the brook, and they
stopped by the little hand-rail, not looking directly at each other: "I
came to bid you good-morning."

"Do you take the early train, then?"

"Yes." He did not mean to tell her that he would not come again. The more
ordinary their parting the sooner she would forget it and him. He had
thought the matter out during the night, and being a man who was apt to
under-rate himself, was convinced that the feeling which she had betrayed
was but that transient flush of preference which any very young and
innocent girl is apt to give to the first man of whom she makes a
companion.

"There is nothing in me likely to win enduring love from her. A more
intellectual woman, indeed--" He had gone over the argument again and
again. When he was out of sight her fancy would soon turn to this new
lover, so much better suited to her in every respect. For himself--But he
had no right, to think of himself. He struck that thought down fiercely
again as they stood together on the bridge. No more right than he would
have, were he dead, to drag down this young creature into his grave.

He patted the child on the head as it clung to her dress, and talked of the
chance of more rain with perfect correctness and civility; and when Jane
managed to raise her eyes to his face she found it grave and preoccupied,
as it usually was over the morning papers. He saw Van Ness coming smiling
to meet her.

"It is time for me to go," he said, his eyes passing slowly over her: then
with a hasty bow, not touching her hand, he struck through the woods to the
station, thinking as he went how she was standing then on the bridge in the
sunshine, with the man whom she would marry beside her. She looked after
him, her eyes full of still, deep content. He loved her. She had forgotten
everything else.

"A perfect morning, Miss Swendon," said Mr. Van Ness, stroking his
magnificent golden beard. "You see just this deep azure sky above the
Sandwich Islands. Now, I remember watching such a dawn on Mauna Loa. Ah-h,
_you_ would have appreciated that. Our friend has gone, eh? Most active,
energetic man! I heard him tell your father he should not return soon
again."

"Not return?" stopping in her slow walk.

"No. It really must be impossible for an editor to spare time o