"A pipe?" "Oh, yes! I'm thoroughly smoke-cured." I dropped upon a bench and drew forth my materials, while she lay and eyed me with her inscrutable stare. "You're a funny man!" she declared, presently, her flexible lips twisting into an odd smile. I chuckled, and jammed the tobacco in the bowl. "How do you get that?" I ventured. "Why didn't you ask to share the hammock with me?" Now though I knew something of woman's ways and woman's wiles, I felt a blush rising, and to hide it I dropped the match I held and bent over to pick it up. Clearly his reverence's niece was bent on a flirtation wherewith to while away the days of her exile. It is needless to say that in my present state of mind I had no heart for dalliance of this sort, but I realized that I must not offend her, so I struck the match on the sole of my shoe and slowly lighted my pipe, thinking hard all the time of what I should say. "You looked so very comfortable," I replied jocularly, between puffs, "that I could not bring myself to make the request. And--you lay down, you know, as though you wanted it all to yourself." With a quick, lithe movement she turned on her side, rested her cheek on her hand, and retorted: "Was that idea really in your mind before I spoke? The truth, mind you!" I was thoroughly uncomfortable. Just what Beryl Drane was driving at I could not guess, but I knew the simple talk which I had come to have with her had suddenly assumed the proportions of a task. It would be silly and egotistic to think this little body was in love with me, and yet as she lay curled kitten-like within arm's length there was a seriousness in her face and manner which troubled me far more than what my answer to her last question would be. "No, it was not," I replied, meeting her eyes steadily. "All men don't tell the truth," was her unexpected rejoinder; "but you do.... Don't you think I am worth sitting by?" Heavens! Why did she persevere in this strain? Why? God pity her, I knew. I knew her birthright of womanliness and unsullied purity had been bartered long ago for the pottage of faithlessness and sham pleasures, and that now the exceeding bitter cry rang in her soul day in and day out. She had made sacrifice of the substantial, the real, the true, and the good, on the shadowy altar of indulgence. She had flung aside the fruit to devour the husk, and the penalty was an insatiable gnawing of the evil teeth which she had first guided with her own hand to her being's core. I shivered inwardly as these thoughts darted lightning-like through my mind, and my face shaped itself into lines of gravity. "Little girl," I said, gently; "I should be glad to sit by you, but what's the use in this instance? We are as two birds passing in mid-air. Soon you will go; soon I will go. Let's be good, honest friends while we stay."