Well, no matter!"

While this indignation lasted she felt better, but as soon as she came
once more in sight of the clearing and of her uncle finishing one of
Adrian's uncompleted tasks, her loneliness returned with double force.
It had almost the effect of bodily illness and she had no experience
to guide her. With a fresh burst of tears she caught her guardian's
hand and hid her face on his shoulder.

"Oh! it's so desolate. So empty. Everything's so changed. Even the
Hollow is different and the squirrels seem like strangers. If he had
to go, why did he ever, ever come!"

"Why, indeed!"

Mr. Dutton was surprised and frightened by the intensity of her grief.
If she could sorrow in this way for a brief friendship, what untold
misery might not life have in store for her? There must have been some
serious blunder in his training if she were no better fitted than this
to face trouble; and for the first time it occurred to him that he
should not have kept her from all companions of her own age.

"Margot!"

The sternness of his tone made her look up and calm herself.

"Y-es, uncle."

"This must stop. Adrian went by my invitation. Because I could no
longer permit your association. Between his household and ours is a
wrong beyond repair. He cannot help that he is his father's son, but
being such he is an impossible friend for your father's daughter. I
should have sent him away, at my very first suspicion of his identity,
but--I want to be just. It has been the effort of my life to learn
forgiveness. Until the last I would not allow myself even to believe
who he was, but gave him the benefit of the chance that his name might
be of another family. When I did know--there was no choice. He had to
go."

Margot watched his face, as he spoke, with a curious feeling that this
was not the loved and loving uncle she had always known but a
stranger. There were wrinkles and scars she had never noticed, a
bitterness that made the voice an unfamiliar one, and a weariness in
the droop of the figure leaning upon the hoe which suggested an aged
and heart-broken man.

Why, only yesterday, it seemed, Hugh Dutton was the very type of a
stalwart woodlander, with the grace of a finished and untiring
scholar, making the man unique. Now---- If Adrian had done this thing,
if his mere presence had so altered her beloved guardian, then let
Adrian go! Her arms went around the man's neck and her kisses showered
upon his cheeks, his hands, ev