As the cotillon closed, she was again in my neighborhood, and her partner led her in my direction.  I was rising painfully from my chair, when Bob Leroy pushed me down again, whisked another seat from somewhere, planted it at my side, and there she was!

She knew who was her neighbor, I plainly saw; but instead of turning toward me, she began to fan herself in a nervous way and to fidget with the buttons of her gloves.  I grew impatient.

“Miss Danvers!” I said, at last.

“Oh!” was all her answer, as she looked at me for a moment.

“Where are your thoughts?” I asked.

Then she turned, with wide, astonished eyes, coloring softly up to the roots of her hair.  My heart gave a sudden leap.

“How can you tell, if I can not?” she asked.

“May I guess?”

She made a slight inclination of the head, saying nothing.  I was then quite sure.

“The second ravine to the left of the main drive?”

This time she actually started; her color became deeper, and a leaf of the ivory fan snapped between her fingers.

“Let there be no more a secret!” I exclaimed.  “Your flowers have brought me your messages; I knew I should find you—­”

Full of certainty, I was speaking in a low, impassioned voice.  She cut me short by rising from her seat; I felt that she was both angry and alarmed.  Fisher, of Philadelphia, jostling right and left in his haste, made his way toward her.  She fairly snatched his arm, clung to it with a warmth I had never seen expressed in a ballroom, and began to whisper in his ear.  It was not five minutes before he came to me, alone, with a very stern face, bent down, and said: 

“If you have discovered our secret, you will keep silent.  You are certainly a gentleman.”

I bowed, coldly and savagely.  There was a draught from the open window; my ankle became suddenly weary and painful, and I went to bed.  Can you believe that I didn’t guess, immediately, what it all meant?  In a vague way, I fancied that I had been premature in my attempt to drop our mutual incognito, and that Fisher, a rival lover, was jealous of me.  This was rather flattering than otherwise; but when I limped down to the ladies’ parlor, the next day, no Miss Danvers was to be seen.  I did not venture to ask for her; it might seem importunate, and a woman of so much hidden capacity was evidently not to be wooed in the ordinary way.

So another night passed by; and then, with the morning, came a letter which made me feel, at the same instant, like a fool and a hero.  It had been dropped in the Wampsocket post-office, was legibly addressed to me and delivered with some other letters which had arrived by the night mail.  Here it is; listen!