"A letter from papa! It came with the stage! What does he say?"

"He says — several things; for one, he is coming back tomorrow instead of the next day."

"Delightful! But there is more?"

Mrs Dene's face became a cheerful blank. "Yes, there is more," she said. A pause.

"Mamma," began Ruth, "do you think Griffins desirable as mothers?"

"Very, for bad children!" Mrs Dene relapsed into a pleasant reverie. Ruth looked at her mother as a kitten does in a game of tag when the old cat has retired somewhere out of reach and sits up smiling through the barrier.

"You find her sadly changed!" she said to Gethryn, in that silvery, mocking tone which she had inherited from her mother.

"On the contrary, I find her the same adorable gossip she always was. Whatever is in that letter, she is simply dying to tell us all about it."

"Suppose we try not speaking, and see how long she can stand that?"

Rex laid his repeater on the table. Two pairs of laughing eyes watched the dear little old lady. At the end of three minutes she raised her own; blue, sweet, running over with fun and kindness.

"The colonel has a polite invitation from the duke for himself, and his party, to shoot on the Red Peak."

Thirteen

In July the sun is still an early riser, but long before he was up next day a succession of raps on the door woke Gethryn, and a voice outside inquired, "Are you going fishing with me today, you lazy beggar?"

"Colonel!" cried Rex, and springing up and throwing open the door, he threatened to mingle his pajamas with the natty tweeds waiting there in a loving embrace. The colonel backed away, twisting his white mustache. "How do, Reggy! Same boy, eh? Yes. I drove from Schicksalsee this morning."

"This morning? Wasn't it last night?" said Rex, looking at the shadows on the opposite mountain.

"And I am going to get some trout," continued the colonel, ignoring the interruption. "So's Daisy. See my new waterproof rig?"

"Beautiful! but — is it quite the thing to wear a flower in one's fishing coat?"

"I'm not aware — " began the other stiffly, but broke down, shook his seal ring at Rex, and walking over to the glass, rearranged the bit of wild hyacinth in his buttonhole with care.

"And now," he said, "Daisy and I will give you just three quarters of an hour." Rex sent a shower from the water basin across the room.

"Look out for those new waterproof clothes, Colonel."

"I'll take them out of harm's way," said the colonel, and disappeared.

Before the time had expired Rex stood under the beech tree with his rod case and his creel. The colonel sat reading a novel. Mrs Dene was pouring out coffee. Ruth was coming down a path which led from a low shed, the door of which stood wide open, suffering the early sunshine to fall on something that lay stretched along the floor. It was a stag, whose noble head and branching antlers would never toss in the sunshine again.

"Only think!" cried Ruth breathlessly, "Federl shot a stag of ten this morning at daybreak on the Red Peak, and he's frightened out of his wits, for only the duke has a right to do that. Federl mistook it for a stag of eight. And they're in the velvet, besides!" she added rather incoherently. " What luck! Poor Federl! I asked him if that meant strafen, and he said he guessed not, only zanken."

"What's 'strafen' and what's 'zanken,' Daisy?" asked the Colonel, pronouncing the latter like "z" in buzz.

Ruth went up to her father and took his face between her hands, dropping a light kiss on his eyebrow.

" Strafen is when one whips bad boys and t—s— zanken is when one only scolds them. Which shall we do to you, dear? Both?"

"We'll take coffee first, and then we'll see which there's time for before we leave you hemming a pocket handkerchief while Rex and I go trout fishing."

"Such parents!" sighed Ruth, nestling down beside her father and looking over her cup at Rex, who gravely nodded sympathy.

After breakfast, as Ruth stood waiting by the table where the fishing tackle lay, perfectly composed in manner, but unable to keep the color from her cheek and the sparkle of impatience from her eye, Gethryn thought he had seldom seen anything more charming.

A soft gray Tam crowned her pretty hair. A caped coat, fastened to the throat, hung over the short kilt skirt, and rough gaiters buttoned down over a wonderful little pair of hobnailed boots.

"I say! Ruth! what a stunner you are!" cried he with enthusiasm. She turned to the rod case and began lifting and arranging the rods.

"Rex," she said, looking up brightly, "I feel about sixteen today."

"Or less, judging from your costume," said her mother. "Schicksalsee isn't Rangely, you know. I only hope the good people in the little ducal court won't call you theatrical."

"A theatrical stunner!" mused Ruth, in her clearest tones. "It is good to know how one strikes one's friends."

"The disciplining of this young person is to be left to me," said the colonel. "Daisy, everything else about you is all wrong, but your frock is all right."

"That is simple and comprehensive and reassuring," murmured Ruth absently, as she bent over the fly-book with Gethryn.

After much consultation and many thoughtful glances at the bit of water which glittered and dashed through the narrow meadow in front of the house, they arranged the various colored lures and leaders, and standing up, looked at Colonel Dene, reading his novel.

"What? Oh! Come along, then!" said he, on being made aware that he was waited for, and standing up also, he dropped the volume into his creel and lighted a cigar.

"Are you going to take that trash along, dear?" asked his daughter.

"What trash? The work of fiction? That's literature, as the gentleman said about Dante."

"Rex," said Mrs Dene, buttoning the colonel's coat over his snowy collar, "I put this expedition into your hands. Take care of these two children."

She stood and watched them until they passed the turn beyond the bridge. Mr Blumenthal watched them too, from behind the curtains in his room. His leer went from one to the other, but always returned and rested on Rex. Then, as there was a mountain chill in the morning air, he crawled back into bed, hauling his night cap over his generous ears and rolling himself in a cocoon of featherbeds, until he should emerge about noon, like some sleek, fat moth.

The anglers walked briskly up the wooded road, chatting and laughing, with now and then a sage and critical glance at the water, of which they caught many glimpses through the trees. Gethryn and Ruth were soon far ahead. The colonel sauntered along, switching leaves with his rod and indulging in bursts of Parisian melody.

"Papa," called Ruth, looking back, "does your hip trouble you today, or are you only lazy?"

"Trot along, little girl; I'll be there before you are," said the colonel airily, and stopped to replace the wild hyacinth in his coat by a prim little pink and white daisy. Then he lighted a fresh cigar and started on, but their voices were already growing faint in the distance. Observing this, he stopped and looked up and down the road. No one was in sight. He sat down on the bank with his hand on his hip. His face changed from a frown to an expression of sharp pain. In five minutes he had grown from a fresh elderly man into an old man, his face drawn and gray, but he only muttered "the devil!" and sat still. A big bronze-winged beetle whizzed past him, z—z—ip! "like a bullet," he thought, and pressed both hands now on his hip. "Twenty-five years ago — pshaw! I'm not so old as that!" But it was twenty-five years ago when the blue-capped troopers, bursting in to the rescue, found the dandy "—-th," scorched and rent and blackened, still reeling beneath a rag crowned with a gilt eagle. The exquisite befeathered and gold laced "—-th." But the shells have rained for hours among the "Dandies" — and some are dead, and some are wishing for death, like that youngster lying there with the shattered hip.

Colonel Dene rose up presently and relighted his cigar; then he flicked some dust from the new tweeds, picked a stem of wild hyacinth, and began to whistle. "Pshaw! I'm not so old as all that!" he murmured, sauntering along the pleasant wood-road. Before long he came in sight of Ruth and Gethryn, who were waiting. But he only waved them on, laughing.

"Papa always says that old wound of his does not hurt him, but it does. I know it does," said Ruth.

Rex noted what tones of tenderness there were in her cool, clear voice. He did not answer, for he could only agree with her, and what could be the use of that?

They strolled on in silence, up the fragrant forest road. Great glittering dragonflies drifted along the river bank, or hung quivering above pools. Clouds of lazy sulphur butterflies swarmed and floated, eddying up from the road in front of them and settling down again in their wake like golden dust. A fox stole across the path, but Gethryn did not see him. The mesh of his landing net was caught just then in a little gold clasp that he wore on his breast.

"How quaint!" cried Ruth; "let me help you; there! One would think you were a French legitimist, with your fleur-de-lis."

"Thank you" — was all he answered, and turned away, as he felt the blood burn his face. But Ruth was walking lightly on and had not noticed. The fleur-de-lis, however, reminded her of something she had to say, and she began again, presently —

"You left Paris rather suddenly, did you not, Rex?"

This time he colored furiously, and Ruth, turning to him, saw it. She flushed too, fearing to have made she knew not what blunder, but she went on seriously, not pausing for his answer:

"The year before, that is three years ago now, we waited in Italy, as we had promised to do, for you to join us. But you never even wrote to say why you did not come. And you haven't explained it yet, Rex."

Gethryn grew pale. This was what he had been expecting. He knew it would have to come; in fact he had wished for nothing more than an opportunity for making all the amends that were possible under the circumstances. But the possible amends were very, very inadequate at best, and now that the opportunity was here, his courage failed, and he would have shirked it if he could. Besides, for the last five minutes, Ruth had been innocently stirring memories that made his heart beat heavily.

And now she was waiting for her answer. He glanced at the clear profile as she walked beside him. Her eyes were raised a little; they seemed to be idly following the windings of a path that went up the opposite mountainside; her lips rested one upon the other in quiet curves. He thought he had never seen such a pure, proud looking girl. All the chivalry of a generous and imaginative man brought him to her feet.

"I cannot explain. But I ask your forgiveness. Will you grant it? I won't forgive myself!"

She turned instantly and gave him her hand, not smiling, but her eyes were very gentle. They walked on a while in silence, then Rex said:

"Ever since I came, I have been trying to find courage to ask pardon for that unpardonable conduct, but when I looked in your dear mother's face, I felt myself such a brute that I was only fit to hold my tongue. And I believed," he added, after a pause, "that she would forgive me too. She was always better to me than I deserved."

"Yes," said Ruth.

"And you also are too good to me," he continued, "in giving me this chance to ask your pardon." His voice took on the old caressing tone in which he used to make peace after their boy and girl tiffs. "I knew very well that with you I should have a stricter account to settle than with your mother," he said, smiling.

"Yes," said Ruth again. And then with a little effort and a slight flush she added:

"I don't think it is good for men when too many excuses are made for them. Do you?"

"No, I do not," answered Rex, and thought, if all women were like this one, how much easier it would be for men to lead a good life! His heart stopped its heavy beating. The memories which he had been fighting for two years faded away once more; his spirits rose, and he felt like a boy as he kept step with Ruth along the path which had now turned and ran close beside the stream.

"Now tell me something of your travels," said Ruth. "You have been in the East."

"Yes, in Japan. But first I stopped a while in India with some British officers, nice fellows. There was some pheasant shooting."

"Pheasants! No tigers?"

"One tiger."

"You shot him! Oh! tell me about it!"

"No, I only saw him."

"Where?"

"In a jungle."

"Did you fire?"

"No, for he was already dead, and the odor which pervaded his resting place made me hurry away as fast as if he had been alive."

"You are a provoking boy!"

Rex laughed. "I did shoot a cheetah in China."

"A dead one?"

"No, he was snarling over a dead buck."

"Then you do deserve some respect."

"If you like. But it was very easy. One bullet settled him. I was fined afterward."

"Fined! for what?"

"For shooting the Emperor's trained cheetah. After that I always looked to see if the game wore a silver collar before I fired."

Ruth would not look as if she heard.

Rex went on teasingly: "I assure you it was embarrassing, when the pheasants were bursting cover, to be under the necessity of inquiring at the nearest house if those were really pheasants or only Chinese hens."

"Rex," exclaimed Ruth, indignantly, "I hope you don't think I believe a word you are saying."

They had stopped to rest beside the stream, and now the colonel sauntered into view, his hands full of wild flowers, his single eyeglass gleaming beside his delicate straight nose.

"Do you know," he asked, strolling up to Ruth and tucking a cluster of bluebells under her chin, "do you know what old Hugh Montgomery would say if he were here?"

"He'd say," she replied promptly, "that 'we couldn't take no traout with the pesky sun a shinin' and a brilin' the hull crick."'

"Yes," said Rex. "Rise at four, east wind, cloudy morning, that was Hugh. But he could cast a fly."

"Couldn't he!" said the colonel. "'I cal'late ter chuck a bug ez fur ez enny o' them city fellers, 'n I kin,' says Hugh. Going to begin here, Rex?"

"What does Ruth think?"

"She thinks she isn't in command of this party," Ruth replied.

"It will take us until late in the afternoon to whip the stream from here to the lowest bridge." Rex smiled down at her and pushed back his cap with a boyish gesture.

She had forgotten it until that moment. Now it brought a perfect flood of pleasant associations. She had seen him look that way a hundred times when, in their teens, they two had lingered by the Northern Lakes. Her whole face changed and softened, but she turned away, nodding assent, and went and stood by her father, looking down at him with the bantering air which was a family trait. The lively colonel had found a sunny log on the bank, where he was sitting, leisurely joining his rod.

"Hello!" he cried, glancing up, "what are you two amateurs about? As usual, I'm ready to begin before Rex is awake!" and stepping to the edge he landed his flies with a flourish in a young birch tree. Rex came and disengaged them, and he received the assistance with perfect self-possession.

"Now see the new waterproof rig wade!" said Ruth, saucily.

"Go and wade yourself and don't bully your old father!" cried the colonel.

"Old! this child old!"

"Oh! come along, Ruth!" called Rex, waiting on the shore and falling unconsciously into the tone of sixteen speaking to twelve.

For answer she slipped the cover from her slender rod and dexterously fitted the delicate tip to the second joint.

"Hasn't forgotten how to put a rod together! Wonderful girl!"

"Oh, I knew you were waiting to see me place the second joint in the butt first!" She deftly ran the silk through the guides, and then scientifically knotting the leader, slipped on a cast of three flies and picked her way daintily to the river bank. As she waded in the sudden cold made her gasp a little to herself, but she kept straight on without turning her head, and presently stepped on a broad, flat rock over which the water was slipping smoothly.

Gethryn waited near the bank and watched her as she sent the silk hissing thirty feet across the stream. The line swished and whistled, and the whole cast, hand fly, dropper and stretcher settled down lightly on the water. He noticed the easy motion of the wrist, the boyish pose of the slender figure, the serious sweet face, half shaded by the soft woolen Tam.

Swish—h—h! Swish—h—h! She slowly spun out forty feet, glancing back at Gethryn with a little laugh. Suddenly there was a tremendous splash, just beyond the dropper, answered by a turn of the white wrist, and then the reel fairly shrieked as the line melted away like a thread of smoke. Gethryn's eyes glittered with excitement, and the colonel took his cigar out of his mouth. But they didn't shout, "You have him! Go easy on him! Want any help!" They kept quiet.

Cautiously, and by degrees, Ruth laced her little gloved fingers over the flying line, and presently a quiver of the rod showed that the fish was checked. She reeled in, slowly and steadily for a moment, and then, whiz—z—z! off he dashed again. At seventy feet the rod trembled and the trout was still. Again and again she urged him toward the shore, meeting his furious dashes with perfect coolness and leading him dexterously away from rocks and roots. When he sulked she gave him the butt, and soon the full pressure sent him flying, only to end in a furious full length leap out of water, and another sulk.

The colonel's cigar went out.

At last she spoke, very quietly, without looking back.

"Rex, there is no good place to beach him here; will you net him, please?" Rex was only waiting for this; he had his landing net already unslung and he waded to her side.

"Now!" she whispered. The fiery side of a fish glittered just beneath the surface. With a skillful dip, a splash, and a spatter the trout lay quivering on the bank.

Gethryn quickly ended his life and held him up to view.

"Beautiful!" cried the colonel. "Good girl, Daisy! but don't spoil your frock!" And picking up his own rod he relighted his cigar and essayed some conscientious casting on his own account. But he soon wearied of the paths of virtue and presently went in search of a grasshopper, with evil intent.

Meanwhile Ruth was blushing to the tips of her ears at Gethryn's praises.

"I never saw a prettier sight!" he cried. "You're — you're splendid, Ruth! Nerve, judgment, skill — my dear girl, you have everything!"

Ruth's eyes shone like stars as she watched him in her turn while he sent his own flies spinning across a pool. And now there was nothing to be heard but the sharp whistle of the silk and the rush of the water. It seemed a long time that they had stood there, when suddenly the colonel created a commotion by hooking and hauling forth a trout of meagre proportions. Unheeding Rex's brutal remarks, he silently inspected his prize dangling at the end of the line. It fell back into the water and darted away gayly upstream, but the colonel was not in the least disconcerted and strolled off after another grasshopper.

"Papa! are you a bait fisherman!" cried his daughter severely.

The colonel dropped his hat guiltily over a lively young cricket, and standing up said "No!" very loud.

It was no use — Ruth had to laugh, and shortly afterward he was seated comfortably on the log again, his line floating with the stream, in his hands a volume with yellow paper covers, the worse for wear, bearing on its back the legend "Calman Levy, Editeur."

Rex soon struck a good trout and Ruth another, but the first one remained the largest, and finally Gethryn called to the colonel, "If you don't mind, we're going on."

"All right! take care of Daisy. We will meet and lunch at the first bridge." Then, examining his line and finding the cricket still there, he turned up his coat collar to keep off sunburn, opened his book, and knocked the ashes from his cigar.

"Here," said Gethryn two hours later, "is the bridge, but no colonel. Are you tired, Ruth? And hungry?"

"Yes, both, but happier than either!"

"Well, that was a big trout, the largest we shall take today, I think."

They reeled in their dripping lines, and sat down under a tree beside the lunch basket, which a boy from the lodge was guarding.

"I wish papa would come," said Ruth, with an anxious look up the road. "He ought to be hungry too, by this time."

Rex poured her a cup of red Tyroler wine and handed her a sandwich. Then, calling the boy, he gave him such a generous "Viertel" for himself as caused him to retire precipitately and consume it with grins, modified by boiled sausage. Ruth looked after him and smiled in sympathy. "I wonder how papa got rid of the other one with the green tin water-box."

"I know; I was present at the interview," laughed Rex. "Your father handed him a ten mark piece and said, 'Go away, you superfluous Bavarian!"'

"In English?"

"Yes, and he must have understood, for he grinned and went."

It was good to hear the ring of Ruth's laugh. She was so happy that she found the smallest joke delightful, and her voice was very sweet. Rex lighted a cigarette and leaned back against a tree, in great comfort. Ruth, perched on a log, watched the smoke drift and curl. Gethryn watched her. They each cared as much for the hours they had spent in the brook, and for their wet clothing, as vigorous, happy, and imprudent youth ever cares about such things.

"So you are happy, Ruth?"

"Perfectly. And you? — But it takes more to make a spoiled young man happy than — "

"Than a spoiled young woman? I don't know about that. Yes, I — am — happy." Was the long puff of smoke ascending slowly responsible for the pauses between his words? A slight shadow was in his eyes for one moment. It passed, and he turned on her his most charming smile, as he repeated, "Perfectly happy!"

"Still no colonel!" he went on; "when he comes he will be tired. We don't want any more trout, do we? We have eighteen, all good ones. Suppose we rest and go back all together by the road?" Ruth nodded, smiling to see him fondle the creel full of shining fish, bedded on fragrant leaves.

Rex's cap lay beside him, his head leaned back against the tree, his face was turned up to the bending branches. Presently he closed his eyes.

It might have been one minute, or ten. Ruth sat and watched him. He had grown very handsome. He had that pleasant air of good breeding which some men retain under any and all circumstances. It has nothing to do with character, and yet it is difficult to think ill of a man who possesses it. When she had seen him last, his nose was too near a snub to inspire much respect, and his mustache was still in the state of colorless scarcity. Now his hair and mustache were thick and tawny, and his features were clear and firm. She noticed the pleasant line of the cheek, the clean curve of the chin, the light on the crisp edges of his close-cut hair — the two freckles on his nose, and she decided that that short, straight nose, with its generous and humorous nostrils, was wholly fascinating. As girls always will, she began to wonder about his life — idly at first, but these speculations lead one sometimes farther than one was prepared to go at the start. How much of his delightful manner to them all was due to affection, and how much to kindliness and good spirits? How much did he care for those other friends, for that other life in Paris? Who were the friends? What was the life? She looked at him, it seemed to her, a long time. Had he ever loved a woman? Was he still in love, perhaps, with someone? Ruth was no child. But she was a lady, and a proud one. There were things she did not choose to think about, although she knew of their existence well enough. She brought herself up at this point with a sharp pull, and just then Gethryn, opening his eyes, smiled at her.

She turned quickly away; to her perfect consternation her cheeks grew hot. Bewildered by her own confusion, she rose as she turned, and saying how lovely the water looked, went and stood on the bridge, leaning over. Rex was on his feet in an instant, so covered with confusion too, that he never saw hers.

"I say, Ruth, I haven't been such a brute as to fall asleep! Indeed I haven't! I was thinking of Braith."

"And if you had fallen asleep you wouldn't be a brute, you tired boy! And who is Braith?"

Ruth turned smiling to meet him, restored to herself and thankful for the diversion.

"Braith," said Rex earnestly. "Braith is the best man in this wicked world, and my dearest friend. To whom," he added, "I have not written one word since I left him two ears ago."

Ruth's face fell. "Is that the way you treat your dearest friends?" — and she thought: "No wonder one is neglected when one is only an old playmate!" — but she was instantly ashamed of the little bitterness, and put it aside.

"Ah! you don't know of what we are capable," said Gethryn; and once more a shadow fell on his face.

A familiar form came jauntily down the road. Ruth hastened to meet it. "At last, Father! You want your luncheon, poor dear!"

"I do indeed, Daisy!"

The colonel came as gallantly up as if he had thirty pounds of trout to show instead of a creel that contained nothing but a novel by the newest and wickedest master of French fiction. He made a mild attempt to perjure himself about a large fish that had somehow got away from him, but desisted and merely added that a caning would be good for Rex.

Tired he certainly was, and when he was seated on the log and Ruth was bringing him his wine, he looked sharply at her and said, "You too, Daisy; you've done enough for the first day. We'll go home by the road."

"It is what I was just proposing to her," said Rex.

"Yes, you are both right," said Ruth. "I am tired."

"And happy?" laughed Rex. But perhaps Ruth did not hear, for she spoke at the same time to her father.

"Dear, you haven't told Rex yet how you got the invitation to shoot."

"Oh, yes! It was at an officers' dinner in Munich. The duke was there and I was introduced to him. He spoke of it as soon as they told him we were stopping here."

"He's a brick," said Rex, rising. "Shall we start for home, Colonel? Ruth must be tired."

When they turned in at the Forester's door, the colonel ordered Daisy to her room, where Mrs Dene and their maid were waiting to make her luxuriously comfortable with dry things, and rugs, and couches, and cups of tea that were certainly not drawn from the Frau Foerster's stores. Tea in Germany being more awful than tobacco, or tobacco more awful than tea, according as one cares most for tea or tobacco.

The colonel and Rex sat after supper under the big beech tree. Ruth, from her window, could see their cigars alight, and, now and then, hear their voices.

Rex was telling the colonel about Braith, of whom he had not ceased thinking since the afternoon. He went to his room early and wrote a long letter to him.

It began: "You did not expect to hear from me until I was cured. Well, you are hearing from me now, are you not?"

And it ended: "Only a few more weeks, and then I shall return to you and Paris, and the dear old life. This is the middle of July. In September I shall come back."

Fourteen

After the colonel's return, Mr Blumenthal found many difficulties in the way of that social ease which was his ideal. The ladies were never to be met with unaccompanied by the colonel or Gethryn; usually both were in attendance. If he spoke to Mrs Dene, or Ruth, it was always the colonel who answered, and there was a gleam in that trim warrior's single eyeglass which did not harmonize with the grave politeness of his voice and manner.

Rex had never taken Mr Blumenthal so seriously. He called him "Our Bowery brother," and "the Gentleman from West Brighton," and he passed some delightful moments in observing his gruesome familiarity with the maids, his patronage of the grave Jaegers, and his fraternal attitude toward the head of the house. It was great to see him hook a heavy arm in an arm of the tall, military Herr Foerster, and to see the latter drop it.

But there came an end to Rex's patience.

One morning, when they were sitting over their coffee out of doors, Mr Blumenthal walked into their midst. He wore an old flannel shirt, and trousers too tight for him, inadequately held up by a strap. He displayed a tin bait box and a red and green float, and said he had come to inquire of Rex "vere to dig a leetle vorms," and also to borrow of him "dot feeshpole mitn seelbern ringes."

The request, and the grossness of his appearance before the ladies, were too much for a gentleman and an angler.

Rex felt his gorge rise, and standing up brusquely, he walked away. Ruth thoughtlessly slipped after him and murmured over his shoulder:

"Friend of yours?"

Gethryn's fists unclenched and came out of his pockets and he and Ruth went away together, laughing under the trees.

Mr Blumenthal stood where Rex had left him, holding out the bait-box and gazing after them. Then he turned and looked at the colonel and his wife. Perspiration glistened on his pasty, pale face and the rolls of fat that crowded over his flannel collar. His little, dead, white-rimmed, pale gray eyes had the ferocity of a hog's which has found something to rend and devour. He looked into their shocked faces and made a bow.

"Goot ma—a—rnin, Mister and Missess Dene!" he said, and turned his back.

The elderly couple exchanged glances as he disappeared.

"We won't mention this to the children," said the gentle old lady.

That was the last they saw of him. Nobody knew where he kept himself in the interval, but about a week later he came running down with a valise in his hand and jumped into a carriage from the "Green Bear" at Schicksalsee, which had just brought some people out and was returning empty. He forgot to give the usual "Trinkgeld" to the servants, and a lively search in his room discovered nothing but a broken collar button and a crumpled telegram in French. But Grethi had her compensation that evening, when she led the conversation in the kitchen and Mr Blumenthal was discussed in several South German dialects.

By this time August was well advanced, but there had been as yet no "Jagd-partie," as Sepp called the hunting excursion planned with such enthusiasm weeks before. After that first day in the trout stream, Ruth not only suffered more from fatigue than she had expected, but the little cough came back, causing her parents to draw the lines of discipline very tight indeed.

Ruth, whose character seemed made of equal parts of good taste and reasonableness, sweet temper and humor, did not offer the least opposition to discipline, and when her mother remarked that, after all, there was a difference between a schoolgirl and a young lady, she did not deny it. The colonel and Rex went off once or twice with the Jaegers, but in a halfhearted way, bringing back more experience than game. Then Rex went on a sketching tour. Then the colonel was suddenly called again to Munich to meet some old army men just arrived from home, and so it was not until about a week after Mr Blumenthal's departure that, one evening when the Sennerins were calling the cows on the upper Alm, a party of climbers came up the side of the Red Peak and stopped at "Nani's Huetterl."

Sepp threw down the green sack from his shoulders to the bench before the door and shouted:

"Nani! du! Nani!" No answer.

"Mari und Josef!" he muttered; then raising his voice, again he called for Nani with all his lungs.

A muffled answer came from somewhere around the other side of the house. "Ja! komm glei!" And then there was nothing to do but sit on the bench and watch the sunset fade from peak to peak while they waited.

Nani did not come "glei" — but she came pretty soon, bringing with her two brimming milk-pails as an excuse for the delay.

She and Sepp engaged at once in a conversation, to which the colonel listened with feelings that finally had to seek expression.

"I believe," he said in a low voice, "that German is the language of the devil."

"I fancy he's master of more than one. And besides, this isn't German, any more than our mountain dialects are English. And really," Ruth went on, "if it comes to comparing dialects, it seems to me ours can't stand the test. These are harsh enough. But where in the world is human speech so ugly, so poverty-stricken, so barren of meaning and feeling, and shade and color and suggestiveness, as the awful talk of our rustics? A Bavarian, a Tyroler, often speaks a whole poem in a single word, like — "

"Do you think one of those poems is being spoken about our supper now, Daisy?"

"Sybarite!" cried Ruth, with that tinkle of fun in her voice which was always sounding between her and her parents; "I won't tell you." The truth was she did not dare to tell her hungry companions that, so far as she had been able to understand Sepp and Nani, their conversation had turned entirely on a platform dance — which they called a "Schuh-plattl" — and which they proposed to attend together on the following Sunday.

But Sepp, having had his gossip like a true South German hunter-man, finally did ask the important question:

"Ach! supper! du lieber Himmel!" There was little enough of that for the Herrschaften. There was black bread and milk, and there were some Semmel, but those were very old and hard.

"No cheese?"

"Nein!"

"No butter?"

"Nein!"

"Coffee?"

"Yes, but no sugar."

"Herr Je!"

When Sepp delivered this news to his party they all laughed and said black bread and milk would do. So Nani invited them into her only room — the rest of the "Huetterl" was kitchen and cow-shed — and brought the feast.

A second Sennerin came with her this time, in a costume which might have startled them, if they had not already seen others like it. It consisted of a pair of high blue cotton trousers drawn over her skirts, the latter bulging all round inside the jeans. She had no teeth and there was a large goiter on her neck.

"Good Heavens!" muttered the colonel, setting down his bowl of milk and twisting around to stare out of the window behind him.

"Poor thing! she can't help it!" murmured Ruth.

"No more she can, you dear, good girl!" said Rex, and his eyes shone very kindly. Ruth caught her breath at the sudden beating of her heart.

What was left of daylight came through the little window and fell upon her face; it was as white as a flower, and very quiet.

Dusk was setting in when Sepp made his appearance. He stood about in some hesitation, and finally addressed himself to Ruth as the one who could best understand his dialect. She listened and then turned to her father.

"Sepp doesn't exactly know where to lodge me. He had thought I could stay here with Nani — "

"Not if I can help it!" cried the colonel.

"While," Ruth went on — "while you and Rex went up to the Jaeger's hut above there on the rocks. He says it's very rough at the Jagd-huette."

"Is anyone else there? What does Sepp mean by telling us now for the first time? " demanded the colonel sharply.

"He says he was afraid I wouldn't come if I knew how rough it was — and that — " added Ruth, laughing — "he says would have been such a pity! Besides, he thought Nani was alone — and I could have had her room while she slept on the hay in the loft. I'm sure this is as neat as a mountain shelter could be," said Ruth — looking about her at the high piled feather beds, covered in clean blue and white check, and the spotless floor and the snow white pine table. "I'd like to stay here, only the — the other lady has just arrived too!"

"The lady in the blue overalls?"

"Yes — and — " Ruth stopped, unwilling to say how little relish she felt for the society of the second Sennerin. But Rex and her father were on their feet and speaking together.

"We will go and see about the Jagd-huette. You don't mind being left for five minutes?"

"The idea! go along, you silly boys!"

The colonel came back very soon, and in the best of spirits.

"It's all right, Daisy! It's a dream of luxury!" and carried her off, hardly giving her time to thank Nani and to say a winningly kind word to the hideous one, who gazed back at her, pitchfork in hand, without reply. No one will ever know whether or not she felt any more cheered by Ruth's pleasant ways than the cows did who were putting their heads out from the stalls where she was working.

The dream of luxury was a low hut of two rooms. The outer one had a pile of fresh hay in one corner and a few blankets. Some of the dogs were already curled up there. The inner room contained two large bunks with hay and rugs and blankets; a bench ran where the bunks were not, around the sides; a shelf was above the bunks; there was a cupboard and a chest and a table.

"Why, this is luxury!" cried Ruth.

"Well — I think so, too. I'm immensely relieved. Sepp says artists bring their wives up here to stay over for the sunrise. You'll do? Eh?"

"I should think so!"

"Good! then Rex and I and Sepp and the Dachl" — he always would say "Dockles" — "will keep guard outside against any wild cows that may happen to break loose from Nani. Good night, little girl! Sure you're not too tired?"

Rex stood hesitating in the open door. Ruth went and gave him her hand. He kissed it, and she, meaning to please him with the language she knew he liked best, said, smiling, "Bonne nuit, mon ami!" At the same moment her father passed her, and the two men closed the door and went away together. The last glimmer of dusk was in the room. Ruth had not seen Gethryn's face.

"Bonne nuit, mon ami!" Those tender, half forgotten — no! never, never forgotten words! Rex threw himself on the hay and lay still, his hands clenched over his breast.

The kindly colonel was sound asleep when Sepp came in with a tired but wagging hound, from heaven knows what scramble among the higher cliffs by starlight. The night air was chilly. Rex called the dog to his side and took him in his arms. "We will keep each other warm," he said, thinking of the pups. And Zimbach, assenting with sentimental whines, was soon asleep. But Gethryn had not closed his eyes when the Jaeger sprang up as the day broke. A faint gray light came in at the little window. All the dogs were leaping about the room. Sepp gave himself a shake, and his toilet was made.

"Colonel," said Rex, standing over a bundle of rugs and hay in which no head was visible, "Colonel! Sepp says we must hurry if we want to see a 'gams."'

The colonel turned over. What he said was: "Damn the Gomps!" But he thought better of that and stood up, looking cynical.

"Come and have a dip in the spring," laughed Rex.

When they took their dripping heads out of the wooden trough into which a mountain spring was pouring and running out again, leaving it always full, and gazed at life — between rubs of the hard crash towel — it had assumed a kinder aspect.

Half an hour later, when they all were starting for the top, Ruth let the others pass her, and pausing for a moment with her hand on the lintel, she looked back into the little smoke-blackened hut. The door of the inner room was open. She had dreamed the sweetest dream of her life there.

Before the others could miss her she was beside them, and soon was springing along in advance, swinging her alpenstock. It seemed as if she had the wings as well as the voice of a bird.

Der Jaeger zieht in gruenem Wald Mit froelichem Halloh!

she sang.

Sepp laughed from the tip of his feather to the tip of his beard.

"Wie's gnaedige Fraulein hat G'mueth!" he said to Rex.

"What's that?" asked the colonel.

"He says," translated Rex freely, "What a lot of every delightful quality Ruth possesses!"

But Ruth heard, and turned about and was very severe with him. "Such shirking! Translate me Gemueth at once, sir, if you please!"

"Old Wiseboy at Yarvard confessed he couldn't, short of a treatise, and who am I to tackle what beats Wiseboy?"

"Can you, Daisy?" asked her father.

"Not in the least, but that's no reason for letting Rex off." Her voice took on a little of the pretty bantering tone she used to her parents. She was beginning to feel such a happy confidence in Rex's presence.

They were in the forest now, moving lightly over the wet, springy leaves, probing cautiously for dangerous, loose boulders and treacherous slides. When they emerged, it was upon a narrow plateau; the rugged limestone rocks rose on one side, the precipice plunged down on the other. Against the rocks lay patches of snow, grimy with dirt and pebbles; from a cleft the long greenish white threads of "Peter's beard" waved at them; in a hollow bloomed a thicket of pink Alpen-rosen.

They had just reached a clump of low firs, around the corner of a huge rock, when a rush of loose stones and a dull sound of galloping made them stop. Sepp dropped on his face; the others followed his example. The hound whined and pulled at the leash.

On the opposite slope some twenty Hirsch-cows, with their fawns, were galloping down into the valley, carrying with them a torrent of earth and gravel. Presently they slackened and stopped, huddling all together into a thicket. The Jaeger lifted his head and whispered "Stueck"; that being the complimentary name by which one designates female deer in German.

"All?" said Rex, under his breath. At the same moment Ruth touched his shoulder.

On the crest of the second ridge, only a hundred yards distant, stood a stag, towering in black outline, the sun just coming up behind him. Then two other pairs of antlers rose from behind the ridge, two more stags lifted their heads and shoulders and all three stood silhouetted against the sky. They tossed and stamped and stared straight at the spot where their enemies lay hidden.

A moment, and the old stag disappeared; the others followed him.

"If they come again, shoot," said Sepp.

Rex passed his rifle to Ruth. They waited a few minutes; then the colonel jumped up.

"I thought we were after chamois!" he grumbled.

"So we are," said Rex, getting on his feet.

A shot rang out, followed by another. They turned, sharply. Ruth, looking half frightened, was lowering the smoking rifle from her shoulder. Across the ravine a large stag was swaying on the edge; then he fell and rolled to the bottom. The hound, loosed, was off like an arrow, scrambling and tumbling down the side. The four hunters followed, somehow. Sepp got down first and sent back a wild Jodel. The stag lay there, dead, and his splendid antlers bore eight prongs.

When Ruth came up she had her hand on her father's arm. She stood and leaned on him, looking down at the stag. Pity mingled with a wild intoxicating sense of achievement confused her. A rich color flushed her cheek, but the curve of her lips was almost grave.

Sepp solemnly drew forth his flask of Schnapps and, taking off his hat to her, drank "Waidmann's Heil!" — a toast only drunk by hunters to hunters.

Gethryn shook hands with her twenty times and praised her until she could bear no more.

She took her hand from her father's arm and drew herself up, determined to preserve her composure. The wind blew the little bright rings of hair across her crimson cheek and wrapped her kilts about her slender figure as she stood, her rifle poised across her shoulder, one hand on the stock and one clasped below the muzzle.

"Are you laughing at me, Rex?"

"You know I am not!"

Never had she been so happy in her whole life.

The game drawn and hung, to be fetched later, they resumed their climb and hastened upward toward the peak.

Ruth led. She hardly felt the ground beneath her, but sprang from rock to moss and from boulder to boulder, till a gasp from Gethryn made her stop and turn about.

"Good Heavens, Ruth! what a climber you are!"

And now the colonel sat down on the nearest stone and flatly refused to stir.

"Oh! is it the hip, Father?" cried Ruth, hurrying back and kneeling beside him.

"No, of course it isn't! It's indignation!" said her father, calmly regarding her anxious face. "If you can't go up mountains like a human girl, you're not going up any more mountains with me."

"Oh! I'll go like a human snail if you want, dear! I've been too selfish! It's a shame to tire you so!"

"Indeed, it is a perfect shame!" cried the colonel.

Ruth had to laugh. "As I remarked to Rex, early this morning," her father continued, adjusting his eyeglass, "hang the Gomps!" Rex discreetly offered no comment. "Moreover," the colonel went on, bringing all the severity his eyeglass permitted to bear on them both, "I decline to go walking any longer with a pair of lunatics. I shall confide you both to Sepp and will wait for you at the upper Shelter."

"But it's only indignation; it isn't the hip, Father?" said Ruth, still hanging about him, but trying to laugh, since he would have her laugh.

He saw her trouble, and changing his tone said seriously, "My little girl, I'm only tired of this scramble, that's all."

She had to be contented with this, and they separated, her father taking a path which led to the right, up a steep but well cleared ascent to a plateau, from which they could see the gable of a roof rising, and beyond that the tip-top rock with its white cross marking the highest point. The others passed to the left, around and among huge rocks, where all the hollows were full of grimy snow. The ground was destitute of trees and all shrubs taller than the hardy Alpen-rosen. Masses of rock lay piled about the limestone crags that formed the summit. The sun had not yet tipped their peak with purple and orange, but some of the others were lighting up. No insects darted about them; there was not a living thing among the near rocks except the bluish black salamanders, which lay here and there, cold and motionless.

They walked on in silence; the trail grew muddy, the ground was beaten and hatched up with small, sharp hoof prints. Sepp kneeled down and examined them.

"Hirsch, Reh, and fawn, and ja! ja! Sehen Sie? Gams!"

After this they went on cautiously. All at once a peculiar shrill hiss, half whistle, half cry, sounded very near.

A chamois, followed by two kids, flashed across a heap of rocks above their heads and disappeared. The Jaeger muttered something, deep in his beard.

"You wouldn't have shot her?" said Ruth, timidly.

"No, but she will clear this place of chamois. It's useless to stay here now."

It was an hour's hard pull to the next peak. When at last they lay sheltered under a ledge, grimy snow all about them, the Jaeger handed his glass to Ruth.

"Hirsch on the Kaiser Alm, three Reh by Nani's Huetterl, and one in the ravine," he said, looking at Gethryn, who was searching eagerly with his own glass. Ruth balanced the one she held against her alpenstock.

"Yes, I see them all — and — why, there's a chamois!"

Sepp seized the glass which she held toward him.

"The gracious Frauelein has a hunter's eyesight; a chamois is feeding just above the Hirsch."

"We are right for the wind, but is this the best place?" said Rex.

"We must make the best of it," said Sepp.

The speck of yellow was almost imperceptibly approaching their knoll, but so slowly that Ruth almost doubted if it moved at all.

Sepp had the glass, and declining the one Rex offered her, she turned for a moment to the superb panorama at their feet. East, west, north and south the mountain world extended. By this time the snow mountains of Tyrol were all lighted to gold and purple, rose and faintest violet. Sunshine lay warm now on all the near peaks. But great billowy oceans of mist rolled below along the courses of the Alp-fed streams, and, deep under a pall of heavy, pale gray cloud, the Trauerbach was rushing through its hidden valley down to Schicksalsee and Todtstein. There was perfect silence, only now and then made audible by the tinkle of a distant cowbell and the Jodel of a Sennerin. Ruth turned again toward the chamois. She could see it now without a glass. But Sepp placed his in her hand.

The chamois was feeding on the edge of a cliff, moving here and there, leaping lightly across some gully, tossing its head up for a precautionary sniff. Suddenly it gave a bound and stood still, alert. Two great clumsy "Hirsch-kuehe" had taken fright at some imaginary danger, and, uttering their peculiar half grunt, half roar, were galloping across the alm in half real, half assumed panic with their calves at their heels.

The elderly female Hirsch is like a timorous granny who loves to scare herself with ghost stories, and adores the sensation of jumping into bed before the robber under it can catch her by the ankle.

It was such an alarm as this which now sent the two fussy old deer, with their awkward long legged calves, clattering away with terror-stricken roars which startled the delicate chamois, and for one moment petrified him. The next, with a bound, he fairly flew along the crest, seeming to sail across the ravine like a hawk, and to cover distances in the flash of an eye. Sepp uttered a sudden exclamation and forgot everything but what he saw. He threw his rifle forward, there was a sharp click! — the cartridge had not exploded. Next moment he remembered himself and turned ashamed and deprecating to Gethryn. The latter laid his hand on the Jaeger's arm and pointed. The chamois' sharp ear had caught the click! — he swerved aside and bounded to a point of rock to look for this new danger. Rex tried to put his rifle in Ruth's hands. She pressed it back, resolutely. "It is your turn," she motioned with her lips, and drew away out of his reach. That was no time for argument. The Jaeger nodded, "Quick!" A shot echoed among the rocks and the chamois disappeared.

"Is he hit? Oh, Rex! did you hit him?"

"Ei! Zimbach!" Sepp slipped the leash, the hound sprang away, and in a moment his bell-like voice announced Rex's good fortune.

Ruth flew like the wind, not heeding their anxious calls to be careful, to wait for help. It was not far to go, and her light, sure foot brought her to the spot first. When Rex and Sepp arrived she was kneeling beside the dead chamois, stroking the "beard" that waved along its bushy spine. She sprang up and held out her hand to Gethryn.

"Look at that beard — Nimrod!" she said. Her voice rang with an excitement she had not shown at her own success.

"It is a fine beard," said Rex, bending over it. His voice was not quite steady. "Herrlich!" cried Sepp, and drank the "Waidmann's Heil!" toast to him in deep and serious draughts. Then he took out a thong, tied the four slender hoofs together and opened his game sack; Rex helped him to hoist the chamois in and onto his broad shoulders.

Now for the upper Shelter. They started in great spirits, a happy trio. Rex was touched by Ruth's deep delight in his success, and by the pride in him which she showed more than she knew. He looked at her with eyes full of affection. Sepp was assuring himself, by all the saints in the Bavarian Calendar, that here was a "Herrschaft" which a man might be proud of guiding, and so he meant to tell the duke. Ruth's generous heart beat high.

Their way back to the path where they had separated from Colonel Dene was long and toilsome. Sepp did his best to beguile it with hunter's yarns, more or less true, at any rate just as acceptable as if they had been proved and sworn to.

Like a good South German he hated Prussia and all its works, and his tales were mostly of Berliners who had wandered thither and been abused; of the gentleman who had been told, and believed, that the "gams" slept by hooking its horns into crevices of the rock, swinging thus at ease, over precipices; of another whom Federl once deterred from going on the mountains by telling how a chamois, if enraged, charged and butted; of a third who went home glad to have learned that the chamois produced their peculiar call by bringing up a hind leg and whistling through the hoof.

It was about half past two in the afternoon and Ruth began to be very, very tired, when a Jodel from Sepp greeted the "Huette" and the white cross rising behind it. As they toiled up the steep path to the little alm, Ruth said, "I don't see Papa, but there are people there." A man in a summer helmet, wound with a green veil, came to the edge of the wooden platform and looked down at them; he was presently joined by two ladies, of whom one disappeared almost immediately, but they could see the other still looking down until a turn in the path brought them to the bottom of some wooden steps, close under the platform. On climbing these they were met at the top by the gentleman, hat in hand, who spoke in French to Gethryn, while the stout, friendly lady held out both hands to Ruth and cried, in pretty broken English:

"Ah! dear Mademoiselle! ees eet possible zat we meet a—h—gain!"

"Madame Bordier!" exclaimed Ruth, and kissed her cordially on both cheeks. Then she greeted the husband of Madame, and presented Rex.

"But we know heem!" smiled Madame; and her quiet, gentlemanly husband added in French that Monsieur the colonel had done them the honor to leave messages with them for Miss Dene and Mr Gethryn.

"Papa is not here?" said Ruth, quickly.

Monsieur the colonel, finding himself a little fatigued, had gone on to the Jaeger-huette, where were better accommodations.

Ruth's face fell, and she lost her bright color.

"But no! my dear!" said Madame. "Zere ees nossing ze mattaire. Your fazzer ees quite vell," and she hurried her indoors.

Rex and Monsieur Bordier were left together on the platform. The amiable Frenchman did the honors as if it were a private salon. Monsieur the colonel was perfectly well. But perfectly! It was really for Mademoiselle that he had gone on. He had decided that it would be quite too fatiguing for his daughter to return that day to Trauerbach, as they had planned, and he had gone on to secure the Jagd-huette for the night before any other party should arrive.

"He watched for you until you turned into the path that leads up here, and we all saw that you were quite safe. It is only half an hour since he left. He did us the honor to say that Mademoiselle Dene could need no better chaperon than my wife — Monsieur the colonel was a little fatigued, but badly, no."

Monsieur Bordier led the way to the usual spring and wooden trough behind the house, and, while Rex was enjoying a refreshing dip, he continued to chat.

Yes, as he had already had the honor to inform Rex, Mademoiselle had been his wife's pupil in singing, the last two winters, in Paris. Monsieur Gethryn, perhaps, was not wholly unacquainted with the name of Madame Bordier?

"Madame's reputation as an artist, and a professor of singing, is worldwide," said Rex in his best Parisian, adding:

"And you, then, Monsieur, are the celebrated manager of 'La Fauvette'?"

The manager replied with a politely gratified bow.

"The most charming theater in Paris," added Rex.

"Ah! murmured the other, Monsieur is himself an artist, though not of our sort, and artists know."

"Colonel Dene has told you that I am studying in Paris," said Rex modestly.

"He has told me that Monsieur exhibited in the salon with a number one."

Rex scrubbed his brown and rosy cheeks with the big towel.

Monsieur Bordier went on: "But the talent of Mademoiselle! Mon Dieu! what a talent! What a voice of silver and crystal! And today she will meet another pupil of Madame — of ours — a genius. My word!"

"Today?"

"Yes, she is with us here. She makes her debut at the Fauvette next autumn."

Rex concealed a frown in the ample folds of the towel. It crossed his mind that the colonel might better have stayed and taken care of his own daughter. If he, Rex, had had a sister, would he have liked her to be on a Bavarian mountaintop in a company composed of a gamekeeper, the manager of a Paris theater and his wife, and a young person who was about to make her debut in opera-bouffe, and to have no better guardian than a roving young art student? Rex felt his unfitness for the post with a pang of compunction. Meantime he rubbed his head, and Monsieur Bordier talked tranquilly on. But between vexation and friction Gethryn lost the thread of Monsieur's remarks for a while.

The first word which recalled his wandering attention was "Chamois?" and he saw that Monsieur Bordier was pointing to the game bag and looking amiably at Sepp, who, divided between sulkiness at Monsieur's native language and goodwill toward anyone who seemed to be accepted by his "Herrschaften," was in two minds whether to open the bag and show the game to this smiling Frenchman, or "to say him a Grobheit" and go away. Sepp's "Grobheit" could be very insulting indeed when he cared to make it so. Rex hastened to turn the scale.

"Yes, Herr Director, this is Sepp, one of the duke's best gamekeepers — Monsieur speaks German?" he interrupted himself to ask in French.

"Parfaitement! Well," he went on in Sepp's native tongue, "Herr Director, in Sepp you see one of the best woodsmen in Bavaria, one of the best shots in Germany. Sepp, we must show the Herr Director our Gems."

And there was nothing for Sepp but to open the bag, sheepish, beaten, laughing in spite of himself, and before he knew it they all three had their heads together over the game in perfect amity.

A step sounded along the front platform, and Madame looked round the corner of the house, saying that lunch was ready. Her husband and Rex joined her immediately. "Ze young ladees are wizin," she said, and led the way.

The sun-glare on the limestone rocks outside made the little room seem almost black at first, and all Rex could distinguish as he followed the others was Ruth's bright smile as she stood near the door and a jumble of dark figures farther back.

"Permit me," said Monsieur, "to introduce you to our Belle Helene." Rex had already bowed low, seeing nothing. "Mademoiselle Descartes — Monsieur Gethryn — " Rex raised his head and looked into the white face of Yvonne.

"Ah, yes! as I was saying," gossiped Monsieur while they were taking their places at table, "I shoot when I can, but merely the partridge and rabbit of the turnip. Bah! a man may not boast of that!"

Rex kept his eyes fixed on the speaker and forced himself to understand what was being said.

"But the sanglier?" His voice sounded in his ears like noises one hears with the head under water.

"Mon Dieu! the sanglier! yes, that is also noble game. I do not deny it." Monsieur talked on evenly and quietly in his self-possessed, reasonable voice, about the habits and the hunt of the wild boar.

Ruth, sitting opposite, forcing herself to swallow the food, to answer Madame gaily and look at her ease, felt her heart settle down like lead in her breast.

What was this? Oh! what was it? She looked at Mademoiselle Descartes. This young, gentle stranger with the dark hair and the face like marble, this girl whom she had never heard of until an hour ago, was hiding from Rex behind the broad shoulders of Madame Bordier. The pupils of her blue eyes were so dilated that the sad, frightened eyes themselves looked black. Ruth turned to Gethryn. He was listening and answering. About his nostrils and temples the hollows showed; the flush of sunburn was gone, leaving only a pallid brown over the ashen grey of his face; his expression varied between a strained smile and a fixed stare. The cold weight at her heart melted and swelled in a passion of pity.

"Someone must keep up! Someone must keep up!" she said to herself; and turned to assure Madame in tones which deserved the name of "crystal and silver," that, Yes, for her part she had not been able to see any reason why hearing Parsifal at Bayreuth should make one forget that Bizet was also a great master.

But the strain became too great, and at the first possible moment she said brightly to Rex, "I'm going to feed Zimbach. Sepp said I might." She collected some scraps on a plate and went out. The hound rose wagging as she approached. Ruth stood a moment looking down at him. Then she knelt and took his brown head in her arms. Her eyes were full of tears. Zimbach licked her face, and then wrenching his head away began to dance about her, barking and running at the platter. She took a bone and gave it to him; it went with a snap; so bit by bit she fed him with her own hands, and the tears dried without one falling.

She heard Rex come out and stood up to meet him with clear grey eyes that seemed to see nothing but a jest.

"Look at this dog, Rex! He hasn't a word to say about the bones he's eaten already; he merely remarks that there don't seem to be any more at present!"

Rex was taking down his gun. "Monsieur wants to see this," he said in a dull, heavy voice. "And Ruth — when you are ready — your father, perhaps — "

"Yes, I really would like to join him as soon as possible — " They went in together.

An hour later they were taking leave. All the usual explanations had been made; everyone knew where the others were stopping, and why they were there, and how long they meant to stay, and where they intended to go afterward.

The Bordiers, with Yvonne, were at a lake on the opposite side of the mountain, but a visit to the Forester's house at Trauerbach was one of the excursions they had already planned.

It only remained now, as Ruth said, to fix upon an early day for coming.

The hour just past had been Ruth's hour.

Without effort, or apparent intention, she had taken and kept the lead from the moment when she returned with Rex. She it was who had given the key, who had set and kept the pitch, and it was due to her that not one discordant note had been struck. Vaguely yet vividly she felt the emergency. Refusing to ask herself the cause, she recognized a crisis. Something was dreadfully wrong. She made no attempt to go beyond that. Of all the deep emotions which she was learning now so suddenly, for the first time, the dominant one with her at present was a desire to help and to protect. All her social experience, all her tact, were needed to shield Rex and this white-faced, silent stranger, who, without her, must have betrayed themselves, so stunned, so dazed they were. And the courage of her father's daughter kept her fair head erect above the dead weight at her heart.

And now, having said "Au revoir" to Monsieur and Madame, and fixed upon a day for their visit to the Foersthaus, she turned to Yvonne and took her hand.

"Mademoiselle, I regret so much to hear that you are not quite strong. But when you come to Trauerbach, Mama and I will take such good care of you that you will not mind the fatigue."

The sad blue eyes looked into the clear grey ones, and once more Ruth responded with a passion of grief and pity.

How Rex made his adieux Ruth never knew.

When he overtook her, she and Sepp were well started down the path to the Jagd-huette. They seemed to be having a duet of silence, which Rex turned into a trio when he joined them.

For such walkers as they all were the distance they had to go was nothing. Soft afternoon lights were still lying peacefully beside the long afternoon shadows as they approached the little hut, and Sepp answered the colonel's abortive attempt at a Jodel with one so long and complicated that it seemed as if he were taking that means to express all he should have liked to say in words. The spell broken, he turned about and asked:

"Also! what did the French people," — he wouldn't call them Herrschaft — "say to the gracious Fraulein's splendid shot?"

Ruth stopped and looked absently at him, then flushed and recovered herself quickly. It was the first time she had remembered her stag.

"I fear," said she, "that French people would disapprove a young lady's shooting. I did not tell them."

Sepp went on again with long strides. The four little black hoofs of the chamois stuck pitifully up out of the bag on his broad back. When he was well out of hearing he growled aloud:

"Hab' 's schon g' wusst! Jesses, Marie and Josef! was is denn does!"

That evening, when Rex and the Jaeger were fussing over the chamois' beard and dainty horns inside the Huette, Ruth and her father stood without, before the closed door. The skies were almost black, and full of stars. Through the wide fragrant stillness came up now and then a Jodel from some Bursch going to visit his Sennerin. A stamp, and a comfortable sigh, came at times from Nani's cows in their stall below.

Ruth put both arms around her father's neck and laid her head down on his shoulder.

"Tired, Daisy?"

"Yes, dear."

Fifteen

Supper was over, evening had fallen; but there would be no music tonight under the beech tree; the sky was obscured by clouds and a wet wind was blowing.

Mrs Dene and Ruth were crossing the hall; Gethryn came in at the front door and they met.

"Well?" said Rex, forcing a smile.

"Well," said Ruth. "Mademoiselle Descartes is better. Madame will bring her down stairs by and by. It appears that wretched peasant who drove them has been carrying them about for hours from one inn to another, stopping to drink at all of them. No wonder they were tired out with the worry and his insolence!"

"It appears Miss Descartes has had attacks of fainting like this more than once before. The doctor in Paris thinks there is some weakness of the heart, but forbids her being told," said Mrs Dene.

Ruth interposed quickly, not looking at Gethryn:

"Papa and Monsieur Bordier, where are they?"

"I left them visiting Federl and Sepp in their quarters."

"Well, you will find us in that dreadful little room yonder. It's the only alternative to sitting in the Bauernstube with all the woodchoppers and their bad tobacco, since out of doors fails us. We must go now and make it as pleasant as we can."

Ruth made a motion to go, but Mrs Dene lingered. Her kind eyes, her fair little faded face, were troubled.

"Madame Bordier says the young lady tells her she has met you before, Rex."

"Yes, in Paris"; for his life he could not have kept down the crimson flush that darkened his cheeks and made his temples throb.

Mrs Dene's manner grew a little colder.

"She seems very nice. You knew her people, of course."

"No, I never met any of her people," answered Rex, feeling like a kicked coward. Ruth interposed once more.

"People!" said Ruth, impatiently. "Of course Rex only knows nice people. Come, mother!"

Putting her arm around the old lady, she moved across the hall with decision. As they passed into the cheerless little room, Rex held open the door. Ruth, entering after her mother, looked in his face. It had grown thinner; shadows were deep in the temples; from the dark circles under the eyes to the chin ran a line of pain. She held out her hand to him. He bent and kissed it.

He went and stood in the porch, trying to collect his thoughts. The idea of this meeting between Ruth and Yvonne was insupportable. Why had he not taken means — any, every means to prevent it? He cursed himself. He called himself a coward. He wondered how much Ruth divined. The thought shamed him until his cheeks burned again. And all the while a deep undercurrent of feeling was setting toward that drooping little figure in black, as he had seen it for a moment when she alighted from the carriage and was supported to a room upstairs. Heavens! How it reminded him of that first day in the Place de la Concorde! Why was she in mourning? What did the doctor mean by "weakness of the heart"? What was she doing on mountaintops, and on the stage of a theater if she had heart disease? He started with a feeling that he must go and put a stop to all this folly. Then he remembered the letter. She had told him another man had the right to care for her. Then she was at this moment deserted for the second time, as well as faithless to still another lover! — to how many more? And it was through him that a woman of such a life was brought into contact with Ruth! And Ruth's parents had trusted him; they thought him a gentleman. His brain reeled.

The surging waves of shame and self-contempt subsided, were forgotten. He heard the wind sough in the Luxembourg trees, he smelled the pink flowering chestnuts, a soft voice was in his ear, a soft touch on his arm, her breath on his cheek, the old, old faces came crowding up. Clifford's laugh rang faintly, Braith's grave voice; odd bits and ends of song floated out from the shadows of that past and through the troubled dream of face and laugh and music, so long, so long passed away, he heard the gentle voice of Yvonne: "Rex, Rex, be true to me; I will come back!"

"I loved her!" he muttered.

There was a stir, a door opened and shut, voices and steps sounded in the room on his left. He leaned forward a little and looked through the uncurtained window.

It was a bare and dingy room containing only a table, some hard chairs, and an old "Fluegel" piano with a long inlaid case.

They sat together at the table. Ruth's back was toward him; she was speaking. Yvonne was in the full light. Her eyes were cast down, and she was nervously plaiting the edge of her little black-bordered handkerchief. All at once she raised her eyes and looked straight at the window. How blue her eyes were!

Rex dropped his face in his hands.

"Oh God! I love her!" he groaned.

"Gute Nacht, gnaedige Herrn!"

Sepp and Federl stood in their door with a light. Two figures were coming down from the Jaeger's cottage. Gethryn recognized the colonel and Monsieur Bordier.

At the risk of scrutiny from those cool, elderly, masculine eyes, Rex's manhood pulled itself together. He went back to meet them, and presently they all joined the ladies in the apology for a parlor, where coffee was being served.

Coming in after the older men, Rex found no place left in the little, crowded room, excepting one at the table close beside Yvonne. Ruth was on the other side. He went and took the place, self-possessed and smiling.

Yvonne made a slight motion as if to rise and escape. Only Rex saw it. Yes, one more: Ruth saw it.

"Mademoiselle has studied seriously since I had the honor — "

"Oui, Monsieur."

Her faint voice and timid look were more than Ruth could bear. She leaned forward so as to shield the girl as much as possible, and entered into the lively talk at the other end of the table.

Rex spoke again: "Mademoiselle is quite strong, I trust — the stage — Sugar? Allow me! — As I was saying, the stage is a calling which requires a good constitution." No answer.

"But pardon. If you are not strong, how can you expect to succeed in your career?" persisted Rex. His eyes rested on one frail wrist in its black sleeve. The sight filled him with anger.

"I would make my debut if I knew it would kill me." She spoke at last, low but clearly.

"But why? Mon Dieu!"

"Madame has set her heart on it. She thinks I shall do her credit. She has been good to me, so good!" The sad voice fainted and sank away.

"One is good to one's pupils when they are going to bring one fame," said Rex bitterly.

"Madame took me when she did not know I had a voice — when she thought I was dying — when I was homeless — two years ago."

"What do you mean?" said Rex sternly, sinking his voice below the pitch of the general conversation. "What did you tell me in your letter? Homeless!"

"I never wrote you any letter." Yvonne raised her blue eyes, startled, despairing, and looked into his for the first time.

"You did not write that you had found a — a home which you preferred to — to — any you had ever had? And that it would be useless to — to offer you any other?"

"I never wrote. I was very ill and could not. Afterward I went to — you. You were gone." Her low voice was heartbreaking to hear.

"When?" Rex could hardly utter a word.

"In June, as soon as I left the hospital."

"The hospital? And your mother?"

"She was dead. I did not see her. Then I was very ill, a long time. As soon as I could, I went to Paris."

"To me?"

"Yes."

"And the letter?"

"Ah!" cried Yvonne with a shudder. "It must have been my sister who did that!"

The room was turning round. A hundred lights were swaying about in a crowd of heads. Rex laid his hand heavily on the table to steady himself. With a strong effort at self-control he had reduced the number of lights to two and got the people back in their places when, with a little burst of French exclamations and laughter, everyone turned to Yvonne, and Ruth, bending over her, took both her hands.

The next moment Monsieur Bordier was leading her to the piano.

A soft chord, other chords, deep and sweet, and then the dear voice:

Oui c'est un reve, Un reve doux d'amour, La nuit lui prete son mystere

The chain is forged again. The mists of passion rise thickly, heavily, and blot out all else forever.

Helene's song ceased. He heard them praise her, and heard "Good nights" and "Au revoirs" exchanged. He rose and stood near the door. Ruth passed him like a shadow. They all remained at the foot of the stairs for a moment, repeating their "Adieus" and "Remerciements." He was utterly reckless, but cool enough still to watch for his chance in this confusion of civilities. It came; for one instant he could whisper to her, "I must see you tonight." Then the voices were gone and he stood alone on the porch, the wet wind blowing in his face, his face turned up to a heavy sky covered with black, driving clouds. He could hear the river and the moaning of the trees.

It seemed as if he had stood there for hours, never moving. Then there was a step in the dark hall, on the threshold, and Yvonne lay trembling in his arms.

*

The sky was beginning to show a tint of early dawn when they stepped once more upon the silent porch. The wind had gone down. Clouds were piled up in the west, but the east was clear. Perfect stillness was over everything. Not a living creature was in sight, excepting that far up, across the stream, Sepp and Zimbach were climbing toward the Schinder.

"I must go in now. I must you — child!" said Yvonne in her old voice, smoothing her hair with both hands. Rex held her back.

"My wife?" he said.

"Yes!" She raised her face and kissed him on the lips, then clung to him weeping.

"Hush! hush! It is I who should do that," he murmured, pressing her cheek against his breast.

Once more she turned to leave him, but he detained her.

"Yvonne, come with me and be married today!"

"You know it is impossible. Today! what a boy you are! As if we could!"

"Well then, in a few days — in a week, as soon as possible."

"Oh! my dearest! do not make it so hard for me! How could I desert Madame so? After all she has done for me? When I know all her hopes are set on me; that if I fail her she has no one ready to take my place! Because she was so sure of me, she did not try to bring on any other pupil for next autumn. And last season was a bad one for her and Monsieur. Their debutante failed; they lost money. Behold this child!" she exclaimed, with a rapid return to her old gay manner, "to whom I have explained all this at least a hundred times already, and he asks me why we cannot be married today!"

Then with another quick change, she laid her cheek tenderly against his and murmured:

"I might have died but for her. You would not have me desert her so cruelly, Rex?"

"My love! No!" A new respect mingled with his passion. Yes, she was faithful!

"And now I will go in! Rex, Rex, you are quite as bad as ever! Look at my hair!" She leaned lightly on his shoulder, her old laughing self.

He smiled back sadly.

"Again! After all! You silly, silly boy! And it is such a little while to wait!"

"Belle Helene is very popular in Paris. The piece may run a long time."

"Rex, I must. Don't make it so hard for me!" Tears filled her eyes.

He kissed her for answer, without speaking.

"Think! think of all she did for me; saved me; fed me, clothed me, taught me when she believed I had only voice and talent enough to support myself by teaching. It was half a year before she and Monsieur began to think I could ever make them any return for their care of me. And all that time she was like a mother to me. And now she has told everyone her hopes of me. If I fail she will be ridiculed. You know Paris. She and Monsieur have enemies who will say there never was any pupil, nor any debut expected. Perhaps she will lose her prestige. The fashion may turn to some other teacher. You know what malice can do with ridicule in Paris. Let me sing for her this once, make her one great success, win her one triumph, and then never, never sing again for any soul but you — my husband!"

Her voice sank at the last words, from its eager pleading, to an exquisite modest sweetness.

"But — if you fail?"

"I shall not fail. I have never doubted that I should have a success. Perhaps it is because for myself I do not care, that I have no fear. When I had lost you — I only thought of that. And now that I have found you again — !"

She clung to him in passionate silence.

"And I may not see your debut?"

"If you come I shall surely fail! I must forget you. I must think only of my part. What do I care for the house full of strange faces? I will make them all rise up and shout my name. But if you were there — Ah! I should have no longer any courage! Promise me to come only on the second night."

"But if you do fail, I may come and take you immediately before Monsieur the Maire?"

"If you please!" she whispered demurely.

And they both laughed, the old happy-children laugh of the Atelier.

"I suppose you are bad enough to hope that I will fail," added she presently, with a little moue.

"Yvonne," said Rex earnestly, "I hope that you will succeed. I know you will, and I can wait for you a few weeks more."

"We have waited for our happiness two years. We will make the happiness of others now first, n'est ce pas?" she whispered.

The sky began to glow and the house was astir. Rex knew how it would soon be talking, but he cared for nothing that the world could do or say.

"Ah! we will be happy! Think of it! A little house near the Parc Monceau, my studio there, Clifford, Elliott, Rowden — Bra—- all of them coming again! And it will be my wife who will receive them!"

She placed a little soft palm across his lips.

"Taisez-vous, mon ami! It is too soon! See the morning! I must go. There! yes — one more! — my love, Adieu!"

Sixteen

Fewer tourists and more hunters had been coming to the Lodge of late; the crack of the rifle sounded all day. There was great talk of a hunt which the duke would hold in September, and the colonel and Rex were invited. But though September was now only a few days off, the colonel was growing too restless to wait.

After Yvonne's visit, he and Ruth were much together. It seemed to happen so. They took long walks into the woods, but Ruth seemed to share now her father's aversion to climbing, and Gethryn stalked the deer with only the Jaegers for company.

Ruth and her father used to come home with their arms full of wild flowers — the fair, lovely wild blossoms of Bavaria which sprang up everywhere in their path. The colonel was great company on these expeditions, singing airs from obsolete operas of his youth, and telling stories of La Grange, Brignoli and Amodio, of the Strakosches and Maretzeks, with much liveliness. Sometimes there would be a silence, however, and then if Ruth looked up she often met his eyes. Then he would smile and say:

"Well, Daisy!" and she would smile and say:

"Well, dear!"

But this could not last. About a week after Yvonne's visit, the colonel, after one of these walks, instead of joining Rex for a smoke, left him sitting with Ruth under the beech tree and mounted the stairs to Mrs Dene's room.

It was an hour later when he rose and kissed his wife, who had been sitting at her window all the time of their quiet talk, with eyes fixed on the young people below.

"I never dreamed of it!" said he.

"I did, I wished it," was her answer. "I thought he was — but they are all alike!" she ended sadly and bitterly. "To think of a boy as wellborn as Rex — " But the colonel, who possibly knew more about wellborn boys than his wife did, interrupted her:

"Hang the boys! It's Ruth I'm grieved for!"

"My daughter needs no one's solicitude, not even ours!" said the old lady haughtily.

"Right! Thank God!" said the veteran, in a tone of relief. "Good night, my dear!"

Two days later they left for Paris.

Rex accompanied them as far as Schicksalsee, promising to follow them in a few days.

The handsome, soldierly-looking Herr Foerster stood by their carriage and gave them a "Glueck-liche Reise!" and a warm "Auf Wiedersehen!" as they drove away. Returning up the steps slowly and seriously, he caught the eye of Sepp and Federl, who had been looking after the carriage as it turned out of sight beyond the bridge:

"Schade!" said the Herr Foerster, and went into the house.

"Schade!" said Federl.

"Jammer-schade!" growled Sepp.

On the platform at Schicksalsee, Rex and Ruth were walking while they waited for the train. "Ruth," said Rex, "I hope you never will need a friend's life to save yours from harm; but if you do, take mine."

"Yes, Rex." She raised her eyes and looked into the distance. Far on the horizon loomed the Red Peak.

The clumsy mail drew up beside the platform. It was the year when all the world was running after a very commonplace Operetta with one lovely stolen song: a Volks-song. One heard it everywhere, on both continents; and now as the postillion, in his shiny hat with the cockade, his light blue jacket and white small clothes, and his curly brass horn, came rattling down the street, he was playing the same melody:

Es ist im Leben haesslich eingerichtet —

The train drew into the station. When it panted forth again, Gethryn stood waving his hand, and watched it out of sight.

Turning at last to leave the platform, he found that the crowd had melted away; only a residue of crimson-capped officials remained. He inquired of one where he could find an expressman and was referred to a mild man absorbing a bad cigar. With him Gethryn arranged for having his traps brought from Trauerbach and consigned to the brothers Schnurr at the "Gasthof zur Post," Schicksalsee, that inn being close to the station.

This settled, he lighted a cigarette and strolled across to his hotel, sitting down on a stone bench before the door, and looking off at the lake.

It was mid-afternoon. The little place was asleep. Nothing was stirring about the inn excepting a bandy Dachshund, which came wheezing up and thrust a cold nose into the young man's hand. High in the air a hawk was wheeling; his faint, querulous cry struck Gethryn with an unwonted sense of loneliness. He noticed how yellow some of the trees were on the slopes across the lake. Autumn had come before summer was ended. He leaned over and patted the hound. A door opened, a voice cried, "Ei Dachl! du! Dachl!" and the dog made off at the top of his hobbyhorse gait.