"I am of a mind to punish you," he cried, drawing her towards him, and leaning over her. He looked determined, and Sydney surrendered her silence with dignified haste. "No, no, don't," she said, in reply to his gesture rather than his words. "I'll tell you anything. What do you want to know?" "First, wherefore you were r-running down here." "To escape from you." "Tr-ruly?" He dropped her hands and looked cut to the heart; so hurt that Sydney hastened to apply ointment to the wound. "But I was walking on the carriage-road to meet you." "You were?" Friedrich's gloomy face was alive again. "Then why did you r-run?" "I don't know. For the same reason a kitten won't come when she's called, I suppose." "Even though she wants to?" "Who knows what a kitten wants?" "It would give me the gr-reatest of pleasure, Miss Car-roll, to shake you!" "I don't doubt it." "It is such a hard blow to my vanity that you r-ran. See, I tr-ry to comfort myself in this question: Perhaps you did not know it was I whose horse you heard?" "Of course I knew it was you." "Oh, Sydney, dear Sydney, did your heart tell you that your lover was on the r-road?" The girl blushed hotly at this bold speech, but she declined to be sentimental. "Not at all," she said. "There was other evidence. Who else could sing like you, 'Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie'?" Her mimicry of his pronunciation was so good, and at the same time so absurd, that they both laughed joyously. They walked slowly towards the gate, behind which Gray Eagle was waiting with what patience he might. "Tell me, my pr-rincess, why have you not allowed me to see you since that evening, though I have come every day?" "That terrible evening! Oh, Friedrich----" "Say that again!" "What? Friedrich?" "Yes. Now just one time more." "How absurd you are, Friedrich!" "I thank you. Now tell me." "Why, for the first day or two there was so much to do in getting them away in their different directions--Hilda and John. Grandmother has had a letter from John, from Palm Beach. He has joined Baron von Sternburg there. And then--oh, Friedrich, perhaps it was foolish, but I could not feel as if we ought to be happy, you and I, so soon after _that_." "What a dear, sensitive child you are! And you thought the time of mourning was up to-day, did you?" "No, but--you won't make fun of me if I tell you?" "I have al-ways supposed that it was you who teased me." "But you might think it was funny ever so many years from now!" "Ah, now there are going to be _years_ in the future. Only a little while ago the future was made up of thousands and thousands and thousands of inter-rminable days." "I know." "You felt it so, too?" "Yes. That's the reason why--you won't ever laugh at me, will you?--I wanted the years to begin to-day. I couldn't wait another twenty-four hours." "My dar-rling!" They stopped, and Friedrich drew her gently into his arms. "Will you let me kiss you?"