thing stealthy about it all, flashed to her mind and
was gone, leaving her grave and perplexed. What a strange suspicion!
What an infernal inference! What grotesque train of thought could have
culminated in such a sinister idea!

She moved slightly in her saddle to look at him, and for an instant
fancied that there was something furtive in his eyes; only for an
instant, for he quietly picked up the thread of conversation where
she had dropped it, saying that it had been raining for the last ten
minutes, and that they might as well turn their horses toward shelter.

"I don't mind the rain," she said; "there is a spring-like odour in it.
Don't you notice it?"

"Not particularly," he replied.

"I was miles away a moment ago," she said; "years away, I mean--a little
girl again, with two stiff yellow braids, trying to pretend that a big
arm-chair was my mother's lap and that I could hear her whispering to
me. And there I sat, on a day like this, listening, pretending, cuddled
up tight, and looking out at the first rain of the year falling in the
backyard. There was an odour like this about it all. Memory, they say,
is largely a matter of nose!" She laughed, fearing that he might have
thought her sentimental, already regretting the familiarity of thrusting
such trivial and personal incidents upon his notice. He was probably too
indifferent to comment on it, merely nodding as she ended.

Then, without reason, through and through her shot a shiver of
loneliness--utter loneliness and isolation. Without reason, because from
him she expected nothing, required nothing, except what he offered--the
emotionless reticence of indifference, the composure of perfect
formality. What did she want, then--companions? She had them. Friends?
She could scarcely escape from them. Intimates? She had only to choose
one or a hundred attuned responsive to her every mood, every caprice.
Lonely? With the men of New York crowding, shouldering, crushing their
way to her feet? Lonely? With the women of New York struggling already
for precedence in her favour?--omen significant of the days to come, of
those future years diamond-linked in one unbroken, triumphant glitter.

Lonely!

The rain was falling out of the hanging mist, something more than a
drizzle now. Quarrier spoke of it again, but she shook her head, walking
her horse slowly onward. The train of thought she followed was slower
still, winding on and on, leading her into half light and shad