For a moment things turned black before Agony's eyes. She rose
unsteadily to her feet and crossed the balcony to the stairs. "I must be
going, now," she murmured through dry lips.

"Must you go so soon?" asked Miss Amesbury with a real regret in her
voice that cut Agony to the heart.

"Come again, come often," floated after her as she passed through the
door.

Agony sped away from camp and hid herself away in the woods, where she
sank down at the foot of a great tree and hid her face in her hands. The
thing she had desired, had longed for above all others, was now about to
come to pass--and she had made it forever an impossibility. The cup of
joy that Fate had decreed she was to taste she had dashed to the ground
with her own hands. For she could not see Edwin Langham, could not let
him see her. As long as he did not see her her secret was safe. He did
not know her name, or Mary's, so he could not betray her in that way.
Only, if he ever saw her he would know the difference right away, and
then would come betrayal and disgrace. There was only one thing to do.
She must hide away from him; and give up her opportunity of meeting and
talking with him. It was the only way out of the predicament.

When the steamer swung into view around the bend of the river the next
afternoon Agony stole away into the thickest part of the woods and
proceeded toward a place she had discovered some time before. It was a
deep, extremely narrow ravine, so narrow indeed that it was merely a
great crock in the earth, not more than six feet across at its widest.
It was filled with a wild growth of elderberry bushes, which made it an