pauses that marked a moment of meditation as she watched some green
curving bank, or a plunge of the mad little creek that sent a glory of
spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of waning
afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape
the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave,
and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone
beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a
narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at
the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was perfectly quiet save for
the splash and babble of the creek.

Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses,
though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She
raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through
the maple tangle. Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop
tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and
dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate enjoyment of the place. It
was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he
leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley.

He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly,
and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the
bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to
steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her
eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the
undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the disturbance was not caused
by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he
crouched on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big
body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of
legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his