And he did. Then he ate a dozen more that she broke for him.

"I feel like a greedy school-boy," he said. "But they are good, and no
mistake. You have introduced me to another pleasure. Now let us go and
take a pull."

All that afternoon there was no mirror to tell her that she was not the
girl who had come to Webster Hall a quarter of a century before. That
night she knelt long by her bed, pressing her hands about her face.

"I am a fool, I know," she thought, "but such things have been. If only
I had a little of her money."

The next day she went down to the lake, not admitting that she expected
him to take her out; it would be enough to see him. She saw him. He
rowed past with Elinor Holt, the most beautiful girl of the lakeside.
His gaze was fixed on the flushed face, the limpid eyes. He did not look
up.

Miss Williams walked back to the house with the odd feeling that she had
been smitten with paralysis and some unseen force was propelling her.
But she was immediately absorbed in the manifold duties of the
housekeeping. When leisure came reaction had preceded it.

"I am a fool," she thought. "Of course he must show Elinor Holt
attention. He is her father's guest. But he might have looked up."

That night she could not sleep. Suddenly she was lifted from her
thoughts by strange sounds that came to her from the hall without. She