Suddenly, with a flaunt of its bushy tail and a daring, backward glance,
it scampered under the gate into Miss Ainslie's garden and Winfield
laughed aloud. He had not known he was so near the other house and was
about to retreat when something stopped him.
Miss Ainslie stood in the path just behind the gate, with her face
ghastly white and her eyes wide with terror, trembling like a leaf.
There was a troubled silence, then she said, thickly, "Go!"
"I beg your pardon," he answered, hurriedly, "I did not mean to frighten
you."
"Go!" she said again, her lips scarcely moving, "Go!"
"Now what in the mischief have I done;" he thought, as he crept away,
feeling like a thief. "I understood that this was a quiet place and yet
the strenuous life seems to have struck the village in good earnest.
"What am I, that I should scare the aged and make the young weep? I've
always been considered harmless, till now. That must be Miss Thorne's
friend, whom I met so unfortunately just now. She's crazy, surely, or
she wouldn't have been afraid of me. Poor thing, perhaps I startled
her."
He remembered that she had carried a basket and worn a pair of gardening
gloves. Even though her face was so changed, for an instant he had
seen its beauty--the deep violet eyes, fair skin, and regular features,
surmounted by that wonderful crown of silvered hair.
Conflicting emotions swayed him as he wended his way to the top of the
hill, with the morning paper in his pocket as an excuse, if he should
need one. When he approached the gate, he was seized by a swift and
unexplainable fear, and would have turned back, but Miss Hathaway's door
was opened.
Then the little maiden of his dreams vanished, waving her hand in token
of eternal farewell, for as Ruth came down the path between the white
and purple plumes of lilac, with a smile of welcome upon her lips, he
knew that, in all the world, there was nothing half so fair.