He had gone West, and had said that he would never return.  He had not been heard from in years.  What an amazing thing, that a mere glimpse of a man who looked and dressed and rode like him should be able to set her whole being into such a panic!  How futile became her dreams of peace!

She heard the sound of a vehicle close beside her carriage, and turned and found herself looking into the sharp eyes of Mrs. Armistead.  It happened that Sylvia was on the side away from the curb, and there was no one talking to her; so Mrs. Armistead ran her electric alongside, and had the stirring occasion to herself.  Sylvia looked into her face, so full of malice, and knew two things in a flash:  First, it really had been Frank Shirley riding by; and second, Mrs. Armistead had seen him!

“Another candidate for your eugenics class!” said the lady.

Sylvia glanced at the young people and made sure they were paying no attention.  She might have made some remark that would have brought them into the conversation, and delivered her from the torments of this devil.  But no, she had never quailed from Mrs. Armistead in her life, and she would not now give her the satisfaction of driving off to tell the town that Sylvia van Tuiver had seen Frank Shirley, and had been overcome by it, and had taken refuge behind the skirts of her little sisters!

“You can see I have my carriage full of pupils” she said, smilingly.

“How happy it must make you, Sylvia—­coming home and meeting all your old friends!  It must set you trembling with ecstasy—­angels singing in the sky above you—­little golden bells ringing all over you!”

Sylvia recognised these phrases.  They were part of an effort she had made to describe the raptures of young love to her bosom friend, Harriet Atkinson.  And so Harriet had passed them on to the town!  And they had been cherished all these years.

She could not afford to recognise these illegitimate children of romance.  “Mrs. Armistead,” she said, “I had no idea you had so much poetry in you!”

“I am simply improvising, my dear—­upon the colour in your cheeks at present!”

There was no way save to be bold.  “You couldn’t expect me not to be excited, Mrs. Armistead.  You see, I had no idea he had come back from the West.”

“They say he left a wife there.” remarked the lady, innocently.

“Ah!” said Sylvia.  “Then he will not be staying long, presumably.”

There was a pause; all at once Mrs. Armistead’s voice became gentle and sympathetic.  “Sylvia,” she said, “don’t imagine that I fail to appreciate what is going on in your heart.  I know a true romance when I see one.  If only you could have known in those days what you know now, there might have been one beautiful love story that did not end as a tragedy.”

You would have thought the lady’s better self had suddenly been touched.  But Sylvia knew her; too many times she had seen this huntress trying to lure a victim out of his refuge.