Ruth resented his calm assumption of mastery. "You're dreadfully
young," she said; "do you think you'll ever grow up?"

"Huh!" returned Winfield, boyishly, "I'm most thirty."

"Really? I shouldn't have thought you were of age."

"Here's a side path, Miss Thorne," he said, abruptly, "that seems
to go down into the woods. Shall we explore? It won't be dark for
an hour yet."

They descended with some difficulty, since the way was not cleat,
and came into the woods at a point not far from the log across
the path. "We mustn't sit there any more," he observed, "or we'll
fight. That's where we were the other day, when you attempted to
assassinate me."

"I didn't!" exclaimed Ruth indignantly.

"That rag does seem to be pretty dry," he said, apparently to
himself. "Perhaps, when we get to the sad sea, we can wet it, and
so insure comparative calm."

She laughed, reluctantly. The path led around the hill and down
from the highlands to a narrow ledge of beach that lay under the
cliff. "Do you want to drown me?" she asked. "It looks very much
as if you intended to, for this ledge is covered at high tide."

"You wrong me, Miss Thorne; I have never drowned anything."