After dinner, she said, “You will want to smoke—­come into Uncle Jim’s library.  I like the pipe smell.  How Aunt Ann detests it!”

“Has Uncle Jim gone back to his pipe?” he inquired, as she sat down.

“Yes, and Aunt Ann declares that she likes it now.”

“How pleasantly you women can fib,” remarked John.

She made no reply except, “Well, sometimes.”  He did not fill his pipe although he lighted in succession two matches and let them burn out.

“Why don’t you smoke, John?” This was a vague effort at the self-defence which she felt might be needed, the mood of the hour not being at all like the mood of two hours ago.

“No,” he replied, “not yet.  Where did you walk—­or did you walk?”

“Oh, I took a little stroll through the woods.”

“Did you chance to go by the old cabin?” This was very dreadful.

“Oh, one hardly remembers if one passes places seen every day.  Why do you ask, John?”—­and then knew she was fatally blundering.

“Why?  Oh, I fell asleep, and when I woke up my game-bag had mysteriously hung itself on the wall.”

“You might have put it there and forgotten it.”

“No, some one must have been in the cabin.”

“Oh, John, how stupid of us!  Why, of course, it was Josiah.”

John was in a state of mind to enjoy the game, and shaking his head in negation said, “No, Josiah passed me long before.  He had a lot of frogs he caught in Lonesome Man’s Swamp.”

Miss Leila having exhausted all the possible explanations, said with sweet simplicity, “Did you ever find out the origin of that name?  Who was the lonesome man?  You see, John, lonesome seems to stand for lonely and sad, as Mr. Rivers said.”  This was rather too clever, but the young woman was so near detection as not to think wisely.

John repeated her words, “Lonely and sad.”  He had been humorously sure of his prey, but the words she used had the effect of bringing into direct speech the appeal she had been trying to evade and knew was near at hand.

He stood leaning against the mantel, his crippled arm caught in his waistcoat.  Repeating her word “lonesome” “more than merely alone”—­he put aside his pipe, the companion of many camp-fires.  His moment of after-silence caused the blue eyes to question timidly with upward glance as their owner sat below him.  He was very grave as he said, “I have come, Leila, to a critical time in my life.  I loved you in a boy’s unmeaning way; I loved you as a lad and a man.  I have said so often in one way or another.  You told me at West Point pretty plainly that—­oh, you made it clear—­that I was a boy asking a woman for her heart.  It was years ago.”

“John, I—­want to—­”

“Well—­later—­now I mean to have my say.  You were not altogether wrong.  I told you that I should ask again when I had more to offer than a boy cadet.  Since then I have held my tongue, or said enough to be sure that your reply made clear that my time had not yet come.