For a little time Tregarvon sat with his back to the sheltering boulder, trying to surround this latest and newest development in the maze of mysteries. Slowly it came to him that this was the explanation of Richardia’s attitude; the reason why she had slipped aside, masking the true state of affairs and rebuffing him by seeming to accept the attentions of Carfax. One by one the corroborative inferences fell into place, each fitting with exact nicety: Richardia’s piquant reticences; her half-confidences which had always stopped short of revealment; her little flights to the shelter of detachment whenever the talk threatened to lean toward sentiment; all these were signs which might have been read--which were plainly readable now in the light of the small tableau staging itself in the shadow of the great rock on the opposite hillside. Tregarvon peeped again. It was most obviously a lovers’ meeting. The young man had drawn the judge’s daughter to a seat beside him on the flat stone, and he still had his arm about her. They were talking eagerly in low tones; Tregarvon could hear only a murmur of voices, but Richardia’s face was toward him, and in it he re-read his complete effacement. In a series of revealing flashes more of the corroborative fragments whisked into place; he had been blind not to see the pointing of certain playful allusions made now and then at the Caswells’ dinner-table and aimed at the music teacher. Doubtless, to the small world of the mountain top, these Sunday-afternoon trysts in the forest were an old story. But why were they clandestine? The answer fitted itself promptly. By all accounts Judge Birrell was a person of shrewd prejudices; quite possibly he disapproved of this young man who had stolen his daughter’s heart; and perhaps the disapproval was not entirely without reason. Tregarvon recalled the signs of perturbation and the sudden pistol drawing which had preceded Richardia’s appearance. In deference to a prompting which took its color more from complete and hopeless chagrin than from any charitable scruples, Tregarvon squared his back against the concealing boulder and refused to look any more. While the pair across the streamlet kept their places, it was impossible for him to retreat undiscovered. The waiting interval was not unduly long. When he could no longer distinguish the murmur of voices he ventured to peep again. The flat-stone seat was empty and they were gone. The sun had dropped behind the mountain, and Tregarvon was tramping soberly through the lengthening wood shadows toward Highmount, when the frock-coated figure of the professor of mathematics loomed suddenly in the path ahead. At Tregarvon’s call, Hartridge stopped and waited. “This is a pleasant surprise,” said the schoolmaster, with his genial smile. “Are you walking my way?” “Very pointedly,” said Tregarvon. “They told me at the college that you had gone to one of the McNabbs’, and I came out on the chance of meeting you.”