hanging out, his brown eyes glowing, finally standing straight up on his hind legs, and waving his fore paws frantically, as in supplication. Helmar, observing him, held up a warning finger, and instantly the dog again subsided, sitting quietly down on his haunches, his head cocked inquiringly to one side, his brown eyes, now grown a trifle anxious, fixed on his master’s face, uncertain of his fate. Helmar looked gravely down at him, a twinkle in his eye, but speaking with assumed regret. “No,” he said slowly, “no, I guess not, sir. It’s a long ways for a little dog, and he might not behave himself, either. He might bark—he might run away—he might chase squirrels, even—he might be a bad, bad dog.” Now the little dog’s big, soft eyes looked very sorrowful, as if they were not far from tears; the head and ears drooped pathetically, the tail limp, discouraged and lifeless, every line of his body expressing the idea that for little dogs it was a very hard, a very sad, a very unkind world. Then suddenly he raised his head. Surely, even as he had despaired, a change had come; surely the admonishing finger was being lowered, and his master’s voice was speaking to him in the tones he loved best to hear. “But,” Helmar was slowly emphasizing, “seeing that on the whole you’re a pretty good little dog, perhaps if you’ll give me your word—your solemn word—to behave, and be a gentleman, why, I think—” his voice quickened perceptibly to a more encouraging tone—“I think, sir, I might let you go. Do you want to go, sir? Do you want to go?”

There was no mistaking the little dog’s answer. With one bound he hurled himself headlong like a miniature catapult against the solid oak of the door, then stood motionless, quivering with excitement, his tail waving jauntily, like a plume, over his back, giving vent to short, sharp barks of joyful impatience. It was a great world for little dogs, after all; a world of blue sky and long, waving grass, a world of running brooks and sunshine, a world perhaps of squirrels even. Helmar, regarding him, laughed. “Come on, then,” he cried, and in a moment the door had closed behind them.

The town clock was striking nine as Helmar got off the train at Eversley, walked up the station lane, and turned into the narrow footpath leading straight across the half mile of broad green meadow that lay between the station and The Birches. Rapidly and steadily his tall figure strode along, from time to time with a half smile on his dark, clean-shaven face, as he watched the little spaniel tearing on far ahead of him, in a very frenzy of delighted freedom, racing and circling desperately here and there in vain pursuit of butterfly and bird.

To the farther edge of the meadow they came. There Helmar, clearing the low rail fence at a bound, for a moment hesitated as he sought to recall Doctor Morrison’s directions, then turned sharp to the right along the shady country road; proceeding at first uncertainly, as on a journey into unknown country, then more confidently, as one by one he came on the landmarks the doctor had foretold: first the massive wall of stone and concrete that marked the limits of the Carleton boundaries, then grove after grove of the silver birches that had gained the place its name, and finally, almost before he expected it, a break in the high lilac hedge, a long, winding drive, green lawns shaded by towering elms, gardens fragrant with flowers, and in the background, just pleasantly distant from the road, the huge, rambling, many-chimneyed old house itself—Edward Carleton’s home.

CHAPTER II

INQUIRING FRIENDS

Helmar had covered perhaps half the distance to the house, when ahead of him he caught sight of a little girl, sitting cross-legged under the shade of one of the big elms, her head bent low over the buttercup wreath she was weaving, and at her side a young woman—from her dress, evidently the child’s nurse or companion—sitting with her back against the tree, deep buried in her book. At the sound of Helmar’s footsteps the child glanced up quickly, and catching sight of the spaniel advancing manfully with head in air, and tail wagging in friendliest of greetings, she scrambled to her feet, and tossing her half-finished wreath aside, came flying across the lawn to meet him. Evidently with both it was a case of love at first sight, for the child stooped and picked the dog up bodily in her arms, pressing his face to hers, and calling him by the hundred pet names which spring so readily to the lips of any true woman—whatever her age. “Oh, you dear,” she cried softly, “you darling; aren’t you a pretty dog!” while the spaniel lay quietly in her arms, only striving to lick her face with his little red tongue. Then, as Helmar approached, she looked up. “Isn’t he a beauty!” she said. “Does he belong to you?”

Helmar stood smiling down at her, thinking that unconsciously she made a very pretty picture with the spaniel’s head pressed against her cheek. She was a dainty little fairy, slender and graceful, dressed in an airy frock of white muslin, with a broad sash of blue ribbon, her straw hat dangling neglected down her back, her big, serious dark eyes gazing solemnly up into his. He nodded in answer. “Yes, he belongs to me,” he said, “but do you suppose you could look after him while I go in to see your uncle?”

The little girl nodded in eager assent. “Oh, yes, indeed,” she cried. “I’ll take care of him. I’ll give him my buttercup wreath. Come now, you darling, come with me,” and with the spaniel still in her arms, she walked back toward the shelter of the big elm.

At Helmar’s nearer approach, the child’s nurse, too, had risen, laying aside her book, and as he passed, naturally enough their glances met—for an instant only—and then Helmar again strode along upon his way, carrying with him the impression of a charming face, and a most alluring smile.

What was there, he wondered, about the girl, that was so vaguely disquieting? She was dressed quietly enough in simple black, with a little snugly-fitting white apron, reaching, by mere chance, just to the height of her bosom, and held in place by smart little shoulder-straps, about it all a daintily vague impression of ribbon and lace. Her figure, indeed, was perfect; deliciously rounded; and the closely-fitting dress seemed to bring out, with significant emphasis, all the beauty of her form. Her face, moreover, was more striking still; her pretty blonde hair appeared to curl so naturally as utterly to defy the mode of convention; her big blue eyes drooped modestly as soon as she had become conscious of his gaze, just long enough to show the heavy fringed eyelashes above, and then almost as quickly glanced up again; there had been a flush of rose in her cheeks, and a deeper scarlet on the lips that had smiled at him. Perhaps it was in the smile itself—slow, langourous, inviting—that the whole woman had seemed suddenly to lie revealed; and scarcely able as yet to define it, Helmar felt that the girl’s seeming simplicity was the dangerous charm of the highest art, and that he had gazed on the guile of the serpent, and not on the innocence of the dove.

Puzzling a little as he walked along, he cast back in his mind to chance words that from time to time had fallen haphazard from Jack Carleton’s