ould affect this unknown girl,
hid himself behind a rock. He had not long to wait, and soon saw the
same lithe figure, and under her arm the same bundle, emerge from the
gorge, and, as she advanced rapidly, saw that it was Mona. Still
unthinking, he stepped out into view and forward to meet her. In one
instant he saw her halt, turn back a step, then around, facing him, and
stand still; and as he neared her and she saw who it was, she sank to
the earth. Then, as he reached her side and saw her, half reclining
against a small ledge, and looking up at him, her face and lips ashen
white, he realized for the first time what a foolish thing he had done.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Hutton," he said earnestly, and removing his
hat on the instant, "I see that I have scared you half to death and I am
sorry; I didn't mean to."

And as she sat up, still looking at him with pitiful eyes, a realizing
sense of his own idiotic action came to him, and he told her, a little
incoherently, perhaps, but truthfully how he had come there both days,
and for what reason.

Frankness is said to be a virtue, and in this case it was more, for it
saved the reputation of Winn Hardy as a man of honor and a gentleman,
in the eyes of Mona Hutton.

"Yes, I was frightened," she said at last, in response to his repeated
plea for forgiveness, after he had told her his story, "and I almost
fainted. It is foolish of me to go there, I know, for mother has told me
it is not safe."

Then as she picked up the green bag that had fallen at her feet and
started to rise once more, Winn's wits came to his rescue, and in an
instant he grasped her hand and arm and almost lifted her to her feet.

"I shall never forgive myself for this day's stupidity," he said, "but I
have wondered a hundred times since that day who on earth it could be
that hid herself in that forbidding spot. I heard you play only one air
then, and that the sweetest ever composed by mortal man. I have heard it
many, many times, but never once when it reached my heart as it did that
day. What blind intuition brought me here I cannot say; but some impulse
did, and if you will believe what I say and that your playing has
wrought a spell over me, I shall be grateful."

To simple and utterly unsophisticated Mona Hutton words like these were
as new as life to a babe, and while she could not and did not believe he
meant them all, as uttered, nevertheless they were sweet to her. It is
likely, also, they