red to
discuss the past. They talked of the plantation on which they resided,
of the pleasant drives in the vicinity, and of matters connected with
the world in general, of which they had learned through the newspapers.
But after the lunch was finished Archie found himself alone with Daisy,
wandering through the extensive oak forest that gave the place its
name.

"How long shall you stay here?" he asked her, as a prelude to the other
questions he wanted to follow it.

"I don't know," she replied. "We shall probably go north during the warm
weather, perhaps to the White Mountains."

He suggested that it must be rather lonesome at Oakhurst.

"Not for us," she said, quickly. "We are all in all to each other, and
require no thickly settled community to satisfy us."

"Daisy," he said, after a pause, "there are things I must say to you,
and I hope--with all my heart--you will find a way to answer them. In
the first place, do you believe me, really, truly, your friend?"

She placed her hand in his for answer. The action meant more than any
form of words.

"Then, tell me--tell me as freely as if I were your brother, your
priest--why you stayed from home that night."

She withdrew the hand he held, to place it with the other over her eyes.

"It is impossible," she responded, with a gasp. "I told you that I never
could explain, and I never can."

He looked sorely disappointed.

"I know no person on earth--not even my father," she proceeded, giving
him back the clasp she had loosened, "that I would tell it to sooner
than you. I have not given him the least hint. I know it leaves you to
think a thousand things, and I can only throw myself on your mercy; I
can only ask you to remember all you knew of me before that day, and
decide whether a girl can change her whole mental and moral attitude in
a moment."

He drew her arm caressingly through his, and breathed a sigh on her
forehead.

"Not for one second have I doubted your truth!" he replied. "Believe
that, Daisy, through everything. But I hoped for an explanation, for
something that might assist me to punish the guilty ones, for such there
must have been."

The face that she turned toward him was full of terror.

"Why do you say that?" she exclaimed.

"Because--"

"No, no!" she cried, interrupting him. "I do not want to hear you! We
must not talk on the subject! There is nothing to be told, nothing to be
guessed. This must be alluded to no more between us. It