“But sometimes I have wished that—­that Mr. Denham was here.”

“Why?” asked Miss Ruth, regarding him full in the face.

“Because then, may be, she would have been less devoted to you.”

Miss Denham did not reply for a moment.

“My aunt is very fond of me,” she said gravely.  “She never likes to have me absent an hour from her side.”

“I can understand that,” said Lynde, with an innocent air.

The girl glanced at him quickly, and went on:  “She adopted me when I was only three years old; we have never been separated since.  She lived in Paris all the time I was at school there, though she did not like Paris as a residence.  She would make any sacrifice for me that a mother would make for a daughter.  She has been mother and sister to me.  I cannot overpay her devotion by any unselfishness of mine.”

As she spoke, Lynde caught a hateful glimpse of the road through the stubby pine-trees beyond.  It appeared to him only two minutes ago that he was assisting Miss Denham to mount the stone steps at the other extremity of the foot-path; and now he was to lose her again.  She was with him alone for perhaps the last time.

“Miss Ruth!” said Lynde, with sudden earnestness in his voice.  He had never before addressed her as Miss Ruth.  She raised her eyes furtively to his face.  “Miss Ruth”—­

“Oh, there’s the carriage, Mr. Lynde!” exclaimed Miss Denham, releasing the arm she had accepted a few paces back, and hurrying down the path, which here narrowed again as at the entrance to the grove.  “And there is aunt Gertrude,” she added, half turning to Lynde, with a rich bloom on her cheeks, “looking as distressed as if we had slipped over some precipice.  But we have not, have we, Mr. Lynde?”

“No, we haven’t slipped over any precipices,” answered Lynde, with a curt laugh.  “I wish we had,” he muttered to himself.  “She has dragged me through that grove and over those stones, and, without preventing me, has not permitted me to breathe the least word of love to her.  I don’t know how she did it.  That girl’s the most consummate coquette I ever saw.  I am a child in her hands.  I believe I’m beginning to be afraid of her.”

Miss Ruth was already in the carriage, pinning the Alpine flower to the corsage of her aunt’s dress, when Lynde reached the steps.  Mrs. Denham’s features expressed no very deep anxiety that he could discover.  That was clearly a fiction of Miss Ruth’s.  Lynde resumed his place on the front seat, and the horses started forward.  He was amused and vexed at the inconsequence of his interview with Miss Denham, and did not know whether to be wholly vexed or wholly amused.  He had, at least, broken the ice, and it would be easier for him to speak when another opportunity offered.  She had understood, and had not repulsed him; she had merely evaded him.  Perhaps he had been guilty of a mismove in attempting to take her at a disadvantage.  He was too discreet to dream of proposing any more walks.  A short cut was plainly not the most direct way to reach Miss Denham.