Like all the gardens in the isle it was surrounded by a wall of dry-
jointed spawls, and at its further extremity it ran out into a corner,
which adjoined the garden of the Caros. He had no sooner reached this
spot than he became aware of a murmuring and sobbing on the other side
of the wall. The voice he recognized in a moment as Avice's, and she
seemed to be confiding her trouble to some young friend of her own sex.

'Oh, what shall I DO! what SHALL I do!' she was saying bitterly. 'So
bold as it was--so shameless! How could I think of such a thing! He
will never forgive me--never, never like me again! He'll think me a
forward hussy, and yet--and yet I quite forgot how much I had grown.
But that he'll never believe!' The accents were those of one who had
for the first time become conscious of her womanhood, as an unwonted
possession which shamed and frightened her.

'Did he seem angry at it?' inquired the friend.

'O no--not angry! Worse. Cold and haughty. O, he's such a
fashionable person now--not at all an island man. But there's no use
in talking of it. I wish I was dead!'

Pierston retreated as quickly as he could. He grieved at the incident
which had brought such pain to this innocent soul; and yet it was
beginning to be a source of vague pleasure to him. He returned to the
house, and when his father had come back and welcomed him, and they had
shared a meal together, Jocelyn again went out, full of an earnest
desire to soothe his young neighbour's sorrow in a way she little
expected; though, to tell the truth, his affection for her was rather
that of a friend than of a lover, and he felt by no means sure that the
migratory, elusive idealization he called his Love who, ever since his