He stood idly throwing pieces of bark into the black depths of the stream and watching them float off. He was thinking. "What an intense creature she is!" When next she spoke it was to repeat the opening lines of Bryant's "Forest Hymn,"--her hands clasped on her heaving breast and her head thrown back. It would not have surprised him much if she had dropped to her knees and begun crossing herself, or have prostrated herself upon the walk, her forehead in the dust. "It is not altogether flattering to my vanity," he mused, "but I'll bet a nickel she has forgotten that I am in the world. She is up in the clouds to-day for some reason. And yet--I could bring her down with a word--one little word." A boyish impulse came over him to try it. He called softly to the child who had run on up the walk, "Philip!" And yet more softly, "Philip!" She turned toward him with a look of such abject terror that he repented the experiment. The color had simply dropped from her face, leaving it white and rigid. "Why do you call him--why do you use that name?" she asked with dry lips. "I heard you say it." "I?" she said incredulously, "when?" "Not a half hour ago. It sounded to me as if you dropped into it from habit." She laughed uneasily, but her color was coming back. "Her name is Philippa. You probably heard me say that and thought I said Philip. She--she doesn't often get her real name." He was looking at her with a quizzical smile. He knew from Bess--or thought he did--that the child's name was Margaret. "You don't lie as if you were used to it," he said coolly. "Try it again." "How dare you talk to me like that?" she cried. "And by what right do you question me?" "I haven't questioned you. What you have told has been told voluntarily. I hardly think you would stick to it if I _should_ question you, but I have no intention of doing it." Then he came nearer to her and spoke very seriously. "Mrs. Osborne, I beg your pardon for speaking as I did. My foolish habit of flippancy has misled me into doing a thing I had no right to do, or rather into speaking in a manner that I had no right to use toward you. I really think that my friendship for you, which you have not forbidden, at any rate, does give me the right to put you on your guard. I have not the remotest idea of the reason for the deception that you are practising, but surely it is a dangerous thing to keep it up." His kindly tone and the manliness of his apology completely disarmed her. "Oh," she said, clasping her hands in distress, "it is because there is so much at stake that I must keep it up. I am driven to it." They were walking along the woodsy path now, but neither was noticing tree or fern or stream. After all, it is the human interest that overpowers every other. "I do not wish to force your confidence, but--if I could help you--" She shook her head. "You cannot help me. There is only one person in all the world that could help me, and he--"