She was staring from the window, trying to get back her happiness.  Ray snatched her hand and held it in a crushing grip.

“For God’s sake, Kate, try to love me, then!” he whispered.

It was spring all about them,—­“the pretty ring-time,”—­and she had just seen what it was to be a defeated and unloved woman.  She felt a thrill go through her, and she turned an indiscreetly bright face upon her companion.

“Don’t expect too much,” she whispered back, “but I will try.”

They went on, almost with the feeling that they were in Arcadia, and drew up at a platform in the midst of woods, through which they could see a crooked trail winding.

“Here’s our place!” cried Ray.  “Don’t you recognize it?  Not that you’ve ever seen it before.”

They dashed, laughing, from the train, and found themselves a minute later in a bird-haunted solitude, among flowers, at the beginning of the woodland walk.  There seemed to be no need to comment upon the beauty of things.  It was quite enough that the bland, caressing air beat upon their cheeks in playful gusts, that the robins gave no heed to them, and that “the little gray leaves were kind” to them.

Never was there a more capricious trail than the one they set themselves to follow.  It skirted the edge of a little morass where the young flags were coming up; it followed the windings of a brook where the wild forget-me-not threw up its little azure buds; it crossed the stream a dozen times by means of shaking bridges, or fallen trees; it had magnificent gateways between twin oaks—­gateways to yet pleasanter reaches of leaving woodland.

“Whatever can it lead to?” wondered Kate.

“To some new kind of Paradise, perhaps,” answered Ray.  “And see, some one has been before us!  Hush—­”

He drew her back into the bushes at the side, beneath a low-hanging willow.  A man and a woman were coming toward them.  The woman was walking first, treading proudly, her head thrown back, her body in splendid motion, like that of an advancing Victory.  The man, taller than she, was resting one hand upon her shoulder.  He, too, looked like one who had mastered the elements and who felt the pangs of translation into some more ethereal and liberating world.  As they came on, proud as Adam and Eve in the first days of their existence, Kate had a blinding recognition of them.  They were David Fulham and Mary Morrison.

She looked once, saw their faces shining with pagan joy, and, turning her gaze from them, sank on the earth behind the screen of bushes.  Ray perceived her desire to remain unseen, and stepped behind the wide-girthed oak.  The two passed them, still treading that proud step.  When they were gone, Kate arose and led the way on along the path.  She wished to turn back, but she dared not, fearing to meet the others on the station platform.  Ray had recognized Fulham, but he did not know his companion, and Kate would not tell him.