"You have waylaid me in a lonely place, master highwayman!" she said,
with a torturing sweetness.

He had never seen her so radiantly debonnaire; yet her heart was full of
annoying anxiety.

"There's so much I want to say to you," he answered more seriously.

"So very much?"

"Very much indeed."

She looked up the road. "I can give you ten minutes," she said.
"Suppose we walk up and down under these trees. It is shady and quiet
here. Now proceed, monsieur. Is it my money or my life?"

"You are in a charming mood to-day."

"Which is more than I could say for you the last time we met. You
threatened, stormed, were childish, impossible to a degree."

His face became grave. "We were such good friends once!"

"Once--once?" she asked maliciously. "Once Cain and Abel were a happy
family. When was that once?"

"Two years ago. What talks we had then! I had so looked forward to your
coming again. It was the alluring thing in my life, your arrival," he
went on; "but something came between."