entirely. The shadow of disappointment that quenched the
brightness of her face was pitiful. Even he could not be
blind to it. He flushed as if surprised, and hesitated a
moment, evidently in conflict with himself. Then a look of
shame and regret came into his eyes. He made some excuse for
not going with us to the picnic, at the Black Brook Falls,
with which the day was celebrated. In the afternoon, as we
all sat around the camp-fire, he came swinging through the
woods with his long, swift stride, and going at once to
Dorothy laid a little brooch of pearl and opal in her hand.

"Will you forgive me?" he said. "I hope this is not too
late. But I lost the train back from Newburg and walked home.
I pray that you may never know any tears but pearls, and that
there may be nothing changeable about you but the opal."

"Oh, Edward!" she cried, "how beautiful! Thank you a
thousand times. But I wish you had been with us all day. We
have missed you so much!"

For the rest of that day simplicity and clearness and joy
came back to us. Keene was at his best, a leader of friendly
merriment, a master of good-fellowship, a prince of delicate
chivalry. Dorothy's loveliness unfolded like a flower in the
sun.

But the Indian summer of peace was brief. It was hardly
a week before Keene's old moods returned, darker and stranger
than ever. The girl's unconcealable bewilderment, her sense
of wounded loyalty and baffled anxiety, her still look of hurt