evident that he had done.

"You must let me do it up for you," she said. "Go and get me the witch-hazel and something for a bandage."

She sat and waited for him in the living-room, where modern taste had made use of the blue-and-white homespun coverlets of the Doctor's grandmother as door curtains and couch covers. She noticed the kettle swung over the fire from the same crane that had balanced its burden thus for a hundred years, and she listened to Bob knocking about up-stairs in the room over her head.

"Now, sit down," she cried, when he returned. "You're so dreadfully tall. Towels! That won't do at all! Here, I'll wet my handkerchief and put that on first."

"May I keep it?"

Bob's good eye twinkled merrily, and what was visible of the other showed some amusement.

"Of course not. You'll return it to me as soon as you can."

Sydney's mouth twitched in appreciation of his audacity.

"I'm afraid I can't very soon," he replied, gravely. "I expect to need it for a long, long time."

He turned to the mirror and gazed therein at his shock of black hair rising above the linen, and at the one rueful eye visible below.

"It makes me look rather a fool, doesn't it? But it's awfully sweet of you to do it, Sydney. I say, Sydney." Suddenly he wheeled about and seized both her hands. "Is it always going to be this way? Are you never going to care for me? You know I'd give my life for you. You never asked me to do anything yet that I didn't do," he hurried on, yearning for an answer from her, yet knowing well that when she raised those white lids the eyes would not give him the reply that he wanted. "Truly, I'll do anything you say, if only you'll care a little, just a little, dear!"

He drew her to him, and she raised to his her eyes, warm, brown, swimming in tears. He let fall her hands, realizing that she knew—that she always had known—and feeling how empty were his words when he had never tried to do for her sake the one thing that might touch her.

Letting fall her hands, he sank speechless upon his knees, and buried his head in the blue-and-white coverlet of the couch.

With tear-laden eyes Sydney walked to the gate, her hands outstretched before her, like a blind man feeling his way. Johnny rubbed his nose in sympathy against her shoulder as she unfastened his chain. It was the first time in Bob's fond, foolish, generous life that ever he had allowed Sydney to do for herself anything that he could do for her.

As Johnny carried his mistress down the State Road, and the "bare, ruined choirs" of the trees became clear to her eyes once again, she realized that a new pain and a new pity had come into her life—and a new responsibility.

IV

"Thou Shalt Not Covet thy Neighbor's Wife"

It was fortunate that Johnny needed no guiding hand, for his mistress was far too absorbed in her thoughts to give him any attention. She did not see the ranks of gray tree-trunks through which peered glimpses of blue as the land fell away against the background of the sky; the heavy bunches of mistletoe in some leafless top failed to attract her attention; and she was blind to the beauty of the coarse green pine-needles against the brown masses of the oak-leaves that cling to the branches all winter to cheat the Devil of his bargain, the Earth, which is to be his when all the boughs are bare.

Her whole soul was filled with a longing to help Bob Morgan,—Bob, her dear old playfellow, so lovable and, alas! so weak. Already she had tried to foster his self-respect and to encourage his firmness by indirect means. It seemed now as if the chance were given her to act more openly. If only she could do so without rousing in the boy's breast a hope that she could not fulfil, for she knew that never could she love him as he wanted to be loved!

It was not that a difference of birth, of rearing, of tradition placed her apart from him. She even had a fondness for him, but love—no!

She had been thinking a great deal about love of late. She knew what it was to have men in love with her. Her grandmother, with whom she lived at fine old Oakwood, had introduced her in Baltimore, where she revived many old-time connections; and she had had another season in New Orleans. Her striking beauty had brought her a success that pleased Mrs. Carroll more than Sydney herself. The haughty old lady approved the girl's coldness, and nodded in agreement with Aunt Frony, who watched her young mistress's path with proprietary satisfaction.

"She cert'nly do favor her paw; 'n she walks along tru all dem gen'lemen like Joseph tru dat co'nfiel' wif de sheaves a-bowin' befo' him, 'n he never pay no mo' 'tention to 'em 'n if dey jus' common roughness—'n no mo' do she!"

"My son's daughter demeans herself as one of her family should," had been Mrs. Carroll's reply; but she was really gratified at this aloofness that seemed to excite the attention which she felt to be her granddaughter's due, without inducing a surrender of her heart. Sydney's marriage would take from her her only companion, and was an evil that the old lady recognized as necessary, but to be put off as long as possible.

Sydney regarded the various love-affairs in which she had had a part as the usual incidents in every woman's career. They had touched her little. She was extraordinarily lacking in conceit, and she could not realize, since her sympathy was unquickened by a responsive affection, that a love of short growth could mean much to its possessor. This lack of appreciation of love's intensity was increased by the fact that her own simplicity of thought and straightforwardness of character always had prevented her from taking seriously any man's attentions until they resolved themselves definitely into intentions.

None of her experiences had moved her like this with Bob Morgan. When, in the autumn, she had given up her season in town on account of her grandmother's feebleness, it had been one of her consolations that at least she would be free from that sort of complication. And here was something worse than anything that had gone before, because her real fondness for Bob gave her an insight into his pain, and a pity for the sorrow that she knew she must inflict upon him.

She felt vaguely into the darkness for a realization of what love was. She had lain awake many a night that winter, waiting for her grandmother's call, listening to the rain as it dripped upon the roof from the twig-tips of the oaks, and dreaming a waking dream of what a love would mean that would make any sacrifice a joy, any pain a rapture. And, like all women from Time's beginning, she had cried into the shadow, "Oh, that I, too, may have this joy, this sacrifice, this pain!"

At the cross-roads Johnny fell into a walk until he should learn his rider's wish. He preferred to go home; but if she chose the right-hand road he was willing to carry her over it, mistaken as he felt her decision to be.

Sydney roused at the change of gait and turned the horse into the homeward way; but, just as he was settling down gleefully to his work, she remembered that she had failed entirely to accomplish the errand upon which her grandmother had sent her; the errand that had clouded her brow with anxiety.

Mrs. Carroll was very fond of Baron von Rittenheim. He interested her, he amused her, he aroused her curiosity, and his formal manners recalled to her memory the gallants of her youth. He called upon her frequently, and the old lady looked forward to his visits with agreeable anticipation. For three weeks he had not been to Oakwood, and she was determined no longer to endure such neglect,—at any rate, to investigate it. To this end she had sent Sydney to Dr. Morgan's to inquire of him news of the recreant German. And Sydney had not stayed to see the Doctor or Mrs. Morgan!

Obedient to the rein, Johnny stopped and looked about with an air of inquiring patronage. His mistress was not given to abrupt changes of intention,