back and forward to the park, chiefly use it. I
often come this way, and do not meet a soul."

"Are you going into the town?"

"Not all the way: just to the turnpike on
the Poynings road. Do you know Mr.
Carruthers's place, Mr. Ward?"

George felt rather uncomfortable as he
answered in the negative, though it was such a
small matter, and the false statement did not
harm anybody. He had told a tolerable
number of lies in the course of his life, but he
shrank with keen and unaccustomed pain from
making this girl, whose golden brown eyes
looked at him so frankly, whose sweet face
beamed on him so innocently, a false answer.

"I am going to the cottage on the roadside,
just below the turnpike," Clare continued; "an
old servant of my aunt lives there, and I have
a message from her. I often go to see her, not
so much from kindness, I'm afraid, as because
I hate to walk outside the park without an
object."

"And you don't mind riding without an
escort any more than you do walking without
one," said George, not in the tone of a question,
but in that of a simple remark. Clare
looked at him with some surprise; he met the
look with a meaning smile.

"You dislike the attendance of a groom, Miss
Carruthers, and never admit it except in case
of necessity. You are surprised, I see: you
will be still more surprised when I tell you I
learned this, not from seeing you ride alone in
the park—there is nothing unusual in that,
especially when you are on such good terms
with your horse—but from your own lips."

"From my own lips, what can you possibly
mean, Mr. Ward? I never saw you until yesterday,
and I know I never mentioned the subject
then."

The young man drew imperceptibly nearer
to her, on the narrow path where they were
walking, and as he spoke the following
sentences, he took from his breast-pocket a little
note-case, which he held in his left hand, at
which she glanced curiously once or twice.

"You saw me, for the first time yesterday,
Miss Carruthers, but I had seen you before. I
had seen you the centre of a brilliant society,
the pride and belle of a ball-room where I had
no place."

("Now," thought George, "if she only goes
home and tells my mother all this, it will be a
nice business. Never mind, I can't help it,"
and he went on impetuously.) The girl made
no remark, but she looked at him with growing
astonishment. "You talked to a gentleman
happier than I—for he was with you—of your
daily rides, and I heard all you said. Forgive
me, the first tone of your voice told me it was
but a light and trivial conversation, or I would
not have listened to it." (George is not
certain that he is telling the truth here, but she is
convinced of it; for is he not an author, an
artist, a hero?) "I even heard the gentleman's
name with whom you were talking, and just
before you passed out of my hearing you
unconsciously gave me this."

He opened the note-book, took out a folded
slip of paper, opened that, too, and held
towards Clare, but without giving it into her
hand, a slip of myrtle.

"I gave you that, Mr. Ward!" she
exclaimed. "I—when—where—how? What do
you mean? I remember no such conversation
as you describe; I don't remember anything
about a ball or a piece of myrtle. When and
where was it? I have been out so little in
London."

Now George had said nothing about London,
but opportunely remembering that he could not
explain the circumstances he had rather rashly
mentioned, and that, unexplained, they might
lead her to the conclusion that the part he had
played on the mysterious occasion in question
had been that of a burglar, he adroitly availed
himself of her error. True, on the other hand,
she might very possibly think that the only
part which a spectator at a ball in London, who
was not a partaker in its festivities, could have
played must have been that of a waiter, which
was not a pleasant suggestion; but somehow
he felt no apprehension on that score. The
girl went on eagerly questioning him, but he
only smiled, very sweetly and slowly, as he
carefully replaced the withered twig in the
note-book, and the note-book in his pocket.

"I cannot answer your questions, Miss
Carruthers; this is my secret—a cherished one,
I assure you. The time may come, though the
probability is very dim and distant just now,
when I shall tell you when, and where, and how
I saw you first; and if ever that time should
come," he stopped, cleared his voice, and went
on, "things will be so different with me that I
shall have nothing to be ashamed or afraid of."

"Ashamed of, Mr. Ward?" said Clare, in a
sweet soft tone of deprecating wonder. All her
curiosity had been banished by the trouble and
sadness of his manner, and profound interest
and sympathy had taken its place.

"You think I ought not to use that word;
I thank you for the gentle judgment," said
George, his manner indescribably softened and
deepened; "but if ever I am in a position to
tell you—but why do I talk such nonsense? I
am only a waif, a stray, thrown for a moment in
your path, to be swept from it the next and
forgotten."

This was dangerous ground, and they both
felt it. A chance meeting, a brief association
which perhaps never ought to have been; and
here was this girl, well brought up, in the
strictest sense of the term, yielding to the
dangerous charm of the stranger's society, and
feeling her heart die within her as his words
showed the prospect before her. Her
complexion died too, tor Clare's was a tell-tale face,
on which emotion had irresistible power. George
saw the sudden paleness, and she knew he saw it.

"I—I hope not," she said, rather incoherently.
"I—I think not. You are an artist
and an author, you know." (How ashamed
George felt, how abashed in the presence of this
self-deluding innocence of hers!) "And I, as
well as all the world, shall hear of you."