“One word more, Mr. Kearney,” she began, looking down, but feeling the color come to her face as she spoke.  “When you spoke to me the day you left, you must have thought me hard and cruel.  When I tell you that I thought you were alluding to Jessie and some feeling you had for her—­”

“For Jessie!” echoed George.

“You will understand that—­that—­”

“That what?” said George, drawing nearer to her.

“That I was only speaking as she might have spoken had you talked to her of me,” added Christie hurriedly, slightly backing her horse away from him.

But this was not so easy, as George was the better rider, and by an imperceptible movement of his wrist and foot had glued his horse to her side.  “He will go now,” she had thought, but he didn’t.

“We must ride on,” she suggested faintly.

“No,” he said with a sudden dropping of his boyish manner and a slight lifting of his head.  “We must ride together no further, Miss Carr.  I must go back to the work I am hired to do, and you must go on with your party, whom I hear coming.  But when we part here you must bid me good-by—­not as Jessie’s sister—­but as Christie—­the one—­the only woman that I love, or that I ever have loved.”

He held out his hand.  With the recollection of their previous parting, she tremblingly advanced her own.  He took it, but did not raise it to his lips.  And it was she who found herself half confusedly retaining his hand in hers, until she dropped it with a blush.

“Then is this the reason you give for deserting us as you have deserted Devil’s Ford?” she said coldly.

He lifted his eyes to her with a strange smile, and said, “Yes,” wheeled his horse, and disappeared in the forest.

He had left her thus abruptly once before, kissed, blushing, and indignant.  He was leaving her now, unkissed, but white and indignant.  Yet she was so self-possessed when the party joined her, that the singular rencontre and her explanation of the stranger’s sudden departure excited no further comment.  Only Jessie managed to whisper in her ear,—­

“I hope you are satisfied now that it wasn’t me he meant?”

“Not at all,” said Christie coldly.

CHAPTER VII

A few days after the girls had returned to San Francisco, they received a letter from their father.  His business, he wrote, would detain him in Sacramento some days longer.  There was no reason why they should return to Devil’s Ford in the heat of the summer; their host had written to beg him to allow them a more extended visit, and, if they were enjoying themselves, he thought it would be well not to disoblige an old friend.  He had heard they had a pleasant visit to Mr. Prince’s place, and that a certain young banker had been very attentive to Christie.

“Do you know what all this means, dear?” asked Jessie, who had been watching her sister with an unusually grave face.