glanced around her in the pleasant sunshine, and then up
into my face.

"I want you," she murmured, "to keep Orrin and Colonel Schuyler apart.
You are Orrin's friend; stay with him, keep by him, do not let him run
alone upon his enemy, for--for there is danger in their
meeting--and--and--"

She could not say more, for just then her father and the Colonel came
back, and she had barely time to call up her dimples and toss her head
in merry banter before they were at her side.

As for myself, I stood dazed and confused, feeling that my six feet
made me too conspicuous, and longing in a vague and futile way to let
her know without words that I would do what she asked.

And I think I did accomplish it, though I said nothing to her and but
little to her companions. For when we parted I took the street which
leads directly to Orrin's house; and when Colonel Schuyler queried in
his soft and gentlemanlike way why I left them so soon, I managed to
reply:

"My road lies here"; and so left them.

* * * * *

I have not told Orrin what she said, but I am rarely away from his
vicinity now, during those hours when he is free to come and go about
the village. I think he wonders at my persistent friendship,
sometimes, but he says nothing, and is not even disagreeable to--_me_.
So I share his pleasures, if they are pleasures, expecting every day
to see him run across the Colonel in the tavern or on the green; but
he never does, perhaps because the Colonel is always with her now, and
we are not nor are ever likely to be again.

Do I understand her, or do I understand Orrin, or do I even understand
myself? No, but I understand my duty, and that is enough, though it is
sometimes hard to do it, and I would rather be where I could forget,
instead of being where I am forced continually to remember.

* * * * *

Am I always with Orrin when he is not at work or asleep? I begin to
doubt it. There are times when there is such a change in him that I
feel sure he has been near her, or at least seen her, but where or
how, I do not know and cannot even suspect. He never speaks of her,
not now, but he watches the house slowly rising in the forest, as if
he would lay a spell upon it. Not that he visits it by daylight, or
mingles with the men who are busy laying stone upon stone; no, no, he
goes to it at night, goes when the moon and stars alone shed light
upon its growing proporti