Lydia's note was a summons to Spencer to go to drive with her on the following morning. When he arrived she was ready with her village cart and a fast cob. Regardless of appearances, her project was to seek some distant spot where they would not be interrupted. The woods near Duck Pond—in which they had passed pleasant hours together twice already—commended themselves to her, and thither she directed their course under the mellow October sunshine. She spoke of their jaunt as a picnic, the edible manifestations of which she disclosed to him stowed in neat packages behind. But she vouchsafed no immediate explanation of the true purpose of this impromptu expedition. She was biding her time until they should walk together in the sylvan paths, free from all danger of interference. Since matters were approaching a climax, she was glad also to give herself up for the moment to the glamour of sitting at his side and realizing their affinity. Of all the men of her acquaintance he was the only one who had never bored her; who seemed to divine and cater to her moods; who amused her when she craved entertainment, and was alive to the precious value of opportune silence. He seemed to her possessed of infinite tact—and Lydia experienced an increasing repugnance when her social sensibilities were jarred. That had been one great trouble with Maxwell; he was forever doing the right thing in the wrong way. His very endearments were awkward, whereas her present companion's slightest gallantry gave a pleasant fillip to her blood.

Spencer, on his part, was quite content to ask no questions. He was with the woman who exercised a subtler and more permanent fascination over him than anyone he had hitherto met, not excepting Miss Wilford, and this drive was only cumulative proof of favor on her part, one more sign that their relations were approaching a crisis. What the precise and ultimate result of their growing intimacy was to be he had not felt the need to consider. For the moment it sufficed to know that, though both her partiality for him and his influence over her were unmistakable, she had up to this point kept him at bay—eluded him when she seemed on the point of throwing herself into his arms. This skilful restraint on her part had served to heighten the interest of his pursuit, and also to deepen the ardor of his attachment.

Before they had gone beyond the limits of Westfield several of their mutual acquaintance were encountered, all of whom were too well-bred to betray the vivid interest which the meeting aroused. Mrs. Cole, on her way to play golf at the club, nodded to them blithely from her phaeton, as though it were the most natural thing in the world they should be together, and so concealed from them her dire suspicions which were thus afforded fresh material to batten on. Gerald Marcy, sportsman-like and dignified on his grizzled hunter, saluted them with the off-hand decorum of a man of the world.

"Glorious weather for man and beast," he asserted, as much as to say that he knew how to mind his own business. When they had passed him, however, he tugged nervously at his mustache and wagged his head like a soothsayer.

The newly engaged couple, sitting side by side in a village cart of similar pattern to theirs, managed to conceal that they did not know which way to look, and sustained the ordeal creditably, though the girl was conscious that her cheeks were flushing. As they left the culprits behind, Peggy clutched her lover's arm and whispered hoarsely, "Did you see that?"

"It's too bad," said Guy, who, being neither blind nor imbecile, had not failed to take in the full import of the situation. "I for one am all in the dark as to how this thing is going to end."

"I knew they would be great friends, but I never supposed for a minute that it would come to anything like this," mused the maiden sadly. "Even when she chaperoned us that night I took for granted it was nothing really serious."

Mrs. Gordon Wallace, who, being a new-comer from the West, was less of an adept, perhaps, in disguising her real feelings, put up her eye-glass a little feverishly as she bowed. Whereupon it pleased Lydia to whisk her head round a moment later.

"She was staring after us with all her eyes!" she exclaimed. "I knew she would; she couldn't resist the temptation. She will report that I have a guilty conscience, whereas I was merely studying human nature in violation of my own social instincts."

"What did she see, after all?" queried Spencer, supposing that his companion stood in need of a little soothing.

"Everyone is talking about us, as you know," Lydia answered, ignoring the query. "We have been for months the burning topic at Westfield, and the fame of our misdeeds has spread abroad. Everything considered, people have been wonderfully forbearing to our faces—perfect moles, in fact—but behind our backs they are chattering like magpies. Fannie Cole intimated as much, though I had guessed it."

"Why need we care what they say?" he asked sedulously. What better opportunity would he have than this for feeling his way? "We know that there have been no misdeeds."

She touched the horse with the tip of her whip, and he bounded forward. "Is it not the prince of misdeeds that we love one another?" she said after a moment.

"We cannot help that."

"But since it is true, what are we going to do about it, my friend?"

"Do? Lydia," he whispered eagerly and bent his cheek toward hers, "it is for you to say."

She recoiled chastely from his endearment, though she thrilled at the proximity. "Is it? I am not sure. I asked you to come with me this morning in order to find out. It appears that we have reached the parting of the ways."

"The parting?" he queried apprehensively.

"Not for us, unless we choose."

"Ah." It was the sigh of an ardent lover.

"Wait. I will tell you by and by when we can talk it out freely." She turned and smiled on him with an effulgent grace such as she had never in her life lavished on Maxwell. Therein she threw wide open for a moment the casement of her soul and let him perceive the completeness of the havoc he had wrought.

"You angel!" he answered, breathing softly, and he pressed her hand. He divined that her dainty spirit was in the mood when all it asked of him was his presence, and that speech would be a discord.

They were passing now beyond the confines of Westfield and the influence of its colony into a more distinctly rural country—stretches of wilder uplands, now pastures, now woods, alternating with small farm buildings around which the fields lay stubbly with the party-colored remains of the harvest, and redolent of autumn odors. Presently they reached a village with a shady main street and old-fashioned white-faced houses, most of the treasures of which, quaint andirons and other picturesque relics of a simpler past, had been sent to market owing to the lure of fancy prices. Then more fields, and at length they branched off from the main road along a winding lane, on either side of which the view was partially shut off by clusters of bushes gay with the colors of the changing season. The perfume of the wild flowers was in the air, and everywhere the blazon of the golden-rod was visible.

They had exchanged an occasional word of comment on the sights and sounds of the varying landscape, yet wholly impersonal. Now once more she turned toward him with the same lustrous smile, and said, like one exalted:

"Love and the world are mine to-day."

Thrilled by this confession of faith, he looked into her eyes ardently, and encircling her waist sought to draw her toward him.

"And they will be mine when you are mine. You must be mine; you shall be mine."

She freed herself from his grasp. "Patience, my friend." Her voice had the tantalizing exultation of an elusive fay. "What should I gain by that? Would you love me any more than you do now?"

"Yes, yes indeed," he answered, disregarding logic.

"I doubt it much," she asserted archly. "But wait."

On they went, and finally the bushes along the winding lane became trees and the sky above their heads was obscured by patches of foliage. They were in an expanse of woods which, in spite of the proximity of civilization, still smacked of luxuriant and elfish nature. The road, though yet wide enough for a vehicle, wound gracefully between oaks and pines stately with age. Some reverent hand had protected them. Their trunks were scarred with weird growths, and on the carpet of the soil big fungi flourished unmolested. It was a wild region to the imaginative and uninitiated, yet there were evidences now and again of the nearness of man and his devices, such as an occasional sign-post or rustic seat. After half a mile of travel over a soft brown carpet sprinkled with fragrant pine needles they brought up at their destination, a sort of sylvan camp—a picnic-ground in reality, a favorite resort of the masses in midsummer. Now it was deserted for the season.

though the simile was applicable to the dismantled wooden buildings rather than to the face of nature. The band-stand and eating pavilion stood like starving ghosts amid the forest mysteries. But there was a hitching-post at hand. Lydia knew her locality, and after the willing cob had been secured and blanketed, she led the way down a short vista to an arbor or summer house, to which clustering vines still imparted some semblance of vernal cosiness. The view from it commanded through a narrow clearing a picturesque outlook on the glistening waters of Duck Pond, while the crackling underbrush furnished a cordon of alert sentinels. On the rustic bench, where many inelegant predecessors had carved their initials, there was ample room for two. Nor was it the first time this pair had made use of it. Settling herself in her corner with folded arms so as to face her companion, Lydia broke the silence.

"Herbert says we cannot go on as we are."

"He has intimated as much several times before."

"But this time he is in earnest. He has put down his foot. He introduced the subject yesterday after you had gone. I told him again the truth—the truth he already knew—that I love you, and not him, and that I can never love him." She paused. Was it to pique his curiosity, or was she feeling her way while she revelled for the moment in her declaration?

He accepted her avowal complacently as a twice-told tale, but he was interested obviously in what was to follow.

"Well?"

"He declines absolutely to be accommodating and resign himself to the situation. The customary foreign point of view in such a case does not appeal to him. When it came to the point I never supposed it would."

"We were getting along so nicely, too. What brought this on?" Spencer remarked parenthetically. The triangular footing had been submitted to by Maxwell for so many months without an outbreak that the logic of events seemed to him to demand some special incident as a justification for this sudden revolt.

"One can never tell when a volcano will assert itself. He simply exploded, that's all," she answered. "The wonder is that he has put up with it so long."

"And what is it that he requires?"

"He implored me never to see you again and to go abroad with him for two years. When I declined, he said that he and I must separate."

"A divorce?"

"We did not discuss precise terms. The idea uppermost in his mind was much less complex than that. He invited me to leave the house."

Spencer made an ejaculation of astonishment. "At once?"

"That was his meaning."

"And what did you reply?" Under the spur of her disclosure he had risen. Resting his arm on one of the spiky knobs of the rustic pillar in front of him, he looked down at her inquiringly. Yet his long, athletic, indolent figure still shrank from the conclusion that the status of their affairs had been permanently disturbed.

"I managed not to commit myself at the moment." She paused briefly. "I desired to talk with you first, Harry. I felt that I must know what you would like me to do."

He straightened himself as from surprise. "I could not like you to do that—leave the house."

"It would only be possible provided I went to you."

For a moment he seemed dumfounded. "From his house to me? But, Lydia"—the boldness of the proposition was so staggering to Spencer, he felt that he must have misunderstood her, and was groping for her meaning. His consternation was evidently not unexpected, nor did it elicit reproach. "No one would call on me, of course," she said dryly. Then she added with cumulating tenseness, as one pleading a cause which she suspects to be hopeless, "It would mean the end of everything else in the world which I care for except one—my love for you. We could leave this place forever, Harry, go to Australia, the world's end, wherever you will, and be happy."

A scampering squirrel with a nut in its mouth hopped into view on the path, scanned them for an instant, then bounded into the underbrush. But only just in time. It seemed to Spencer that the little animal was grinning at him, and he had reached for a missile as an outlet for his doubly harassed feelings.

"My dear girl, you are crazy."

"Very likely, Harry."

"I love you to distraction, God knows, but that sort of thing is out of date. Why, Lydia, you would be the first to tire of it. Happy? We should neither of us be happy, for what would we have to live on?" The final inflection of his voice was veritable triumph, so irrefutable appeared his logic.

Lydia gave a profound sigh. "I knew you would say that," she answered quickly. "But it was our only chance. Suppose I get my divorce and we marry here, what have we to live on? I have three thousand a year of my own. And you?"

"Not quite so much—assured."

"Exactly. And there you are!—as Henry James's characters are so fond of saying."

They gazed at each other mutely.

"We should be beggars with our tastes," she resumed. "It would never do, would it, dear? You see, I have considered the subject."

"I perceive that you have." The pensiveness of his tone was a virtual admission that he had failed to recognize how subtle she had been.

"The other was our only chance," she repeated. "I would have gone with you, probably, if you had consented."

"But I do consent, if you wish it," he asserted eagerly; and falling on his knee he reached for her hand and pressed it to his lips. For the first time in his life he had yielded to the intoxication of love against his reason. The charm of this elusive, chameleon-like being had got the better for the moment both of his discretion and his inherent selfishness.

Though the capitulation entranced Lydia, it had come too slowly and too late. She shook her head. "It is you who have convinced me. You are perfectly right. I should tire without things—of living on next to nothing. It would be impossible. You knew me better than I did myself." She freed her hand gently from his blandishments and smiled in his face.

He rose and looked down at her again from the rustic pillar. "We might manage somehow. I should be ready to try." He was nerved for the sacrifice.

"On six thousand? Oh, no, you wouldn't. At any rate, I should not."

It was futile to pretend that it would be adequate. "We might live abroad. Things are cheaper there," he suggested.

"But I don't wish to live abroad. I wish to remain here, and I could not hold up my head on much less than I have now, for, under the circumstances, no one would call on us if we were poor."

He showed that he saw the point, but it suited her to enlarge upon it. "If one has millions and good manners one can do anything in America; everything else is forgiven. But I would never put myself in the position where I might be snubbed or pitied. That's why I must be rich. And as for you, Harry," she continued, "unless you had a stable, steam yacht, and at least two establishments, you would feel, after you had cooled off, that you had thrown yourself away, and, consequently, we should both be miserable."

He laughed a little sceptically, but he did not deny the impeachment. "What a clever woman you are, Lydia! That's one reason I love you so. The thing to do," he said in his caressing voice, "is to prevent matters from reaching the desperate stage. You must patch it up somehow with Maxwell, and—and we shall find ways to see each other," he added meaningly.

She appeared not to hear his suggestion. "One million is the very least that you and I could marry on—and be perfectly happy. And, if we had it, we might be very happy."

Her sigh of regret encouraged his alert warmth. He leaned toward her and whispered, "Let us, then, be happy in the only way which is possible."

She raised a warning hand. It was clear that she had understood his previous innuendo. "To be happy under the rose is respectable abroad, but here it may mean social ostracism," she replied demurely. "I tell you that Herbert is dreadfully in earnest. Besides," she added after one of her deliberate pauses, "Do you not love me? That is what I crave. That is the essential thing for me."

"You are mocking me," he said with choler.

"No; only showing myself conservative and sensible like yourself. Neither of us can afford to sacrifice everything, yet it would be infinitely preferable to live together. You must find our million."

Spencer shrugged his shoulders. "Where? In the stock-market? One plunge, and drink wormwood if I lost? I will make you listen to me yet," he said with the rising energy of one who feels himself at bay. His eyes gleamed ardently, and the lines of his dark countenance, little accustomed to brook opposition, grew rigid as they did in the moments when he concentrated all his nerves on accomplishment.

The charm of his mastering mood was not lost on Lydia, but its effect was to fix her wits still more closely on the problem of their future. Where was the necessary escape or remedy to be found? She lifted her eyes to meet her lover's gaze, but they stared beyond him into the realm of speculation. Suddenly she started as one who sees a spectre—something weird and forbidden. Yet her stricken vision seemed to gather fascination from a longer look, and she moved her lips as though she were bandying words with doubts which fell like nine-pins before her intelligence. Then, with a transport which revealed that she had taken the intruder, however terrible, to her breast as the bringer of a dispensation, she exclaimed:

"Harry, I have found a way."

"A way?" he ejaculated, for to him there now seemed only one course open consistent with their necessities, and he feared some radical proposal as the outcome of her trance.

"For us to marry. We shall have enough."

"Where is the gold mine?" he asked indulgently.

She looked at him musingly with bright, searching eyes. In that moment she concluded not to reveal her secret. "Yes, a gold mine," she answered. "We shall have our million—perhaps two. Why not two?" She asked the question of herself, and it was plain that she saw no stable obstacle to her now widening ambition.

Meanwhile Spencer surveyed her with scrutinizing wonder. Evidently her transport was genuine. He knew her too well to doubt that there was some basis for her specific statement as to the money.

"Two would be better than one, Lydia. Let it be two, by all means," he said jauntily.

"It shall be two," she replied with the assurance of a necromancer confident of compelling respect for his magic wand by the performance of the marvels he has foretold. "You may kiss me, Harry—once."

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