into an
explanation of her actions with him at that hour and under existing
circumstances. She had recovered from her sudden fright, and was
merely annoyed now, and bent her wits to the combined problems of
escape and regaining the house unseen.

Remembering that her white face and hands might reveal her whereabouts
she turned, bent and crept up the slope until a bush afforded welcome
concealment. Some thorns scratched her ankles, but she gave no heed to
such trivial mishaps. A rabbit jumped out from under her feet, and it
cost something of an effort to repress a slight scream; but--to her
credit be it said--she set her lips tightly, and was almost amused by
the game of hide and seek thus unexpectedly thrust on her.

Meanwhile Robert had reached the little promontory on which the statue
was poised, and no Sylvia was in sight.

"Sylvia!" he cried again. "Where are you? No use hidin', because I
know you're here! Dash it all, if you wanted a bit of a stroll why
didn't you send for me? You knew I'd come like a shot--eh, what?"

He listened and peered, but might as well have been deaf and blind for
aught he could distinguish of the girl he sought.

Then he laughed; and a peculiar quality in that chuckle of mirth
struck a new note of anxiety, even of fear, in Sylvia's laboring
heart.

"So you won't be good!" he guffawed thickly. "Playin' Puss in the
Corner, I suppose? Very well, I give you fair warnin'. I mean to catch
you, an' when I do I'll claim forfeit.... _I_ don't mind. Fact is, I
like it. It's rather fun chasin' one's best girl in the dark....
Dashed if it isn't better'n a bit out of a French farce.... Puss!
Puss!... I see you.... Hidin' there among the bushy bushes.... Gad!
How's that for a test after a big night? Bushy bushes! I must not
forget that. Try it on one of the b-boys.... Now, come out of it!...
Naughty puss! I'll get you in a tick, see if I don't!"

He was keeping to the track Sylvia herself had taken, since the lie of
the land was familiar to him as to her. Talking to himself, cackling
at his own flashes of wit, halting after each few paces to search the
immediate neighborhood and detect any guiding sound, he was now on the
same side of the lake as the girl, and coming perilously near. At each
step, apparently, he found the growing obscurity more tantalizing. He
still continued calling aloud: "Sylvia! Sylvia, I say! Chuck it, can't
you? You must give in, you know. I'll be grabbin' you in a minute