"Yes," I laughed. "Of our long walks around Harwell I have many pleasant recollections. Do you remember how secretly we used to meet, fearing the anger of your people; how sometimes I used to wait hours for you, and how we used to imagine that our love would last always?" "Oh, yes," she answered. "I recollect, too, how I used to send you notes down by one of the stable lads, and pay him with sweets." I laughed again. "All that has gone by," I said. "In those days of our experience we believed that our mutual liking was actual love. Even if we now smile at our recollections, they were, nevertheless, the happiest hours of all our lives. Love is never so fervent and devoted as in early youth." "Ah!" she answered in a serious tone. "You are quite right. I have never since those days known what it is to really love." I glanced at her sharply. Her eyes were cast upon the ground in sudden melancholy. Was that speech of hers a veiled declaration that she loved me still! I held my breath for an instant, then looking straight before me, saw, standing a few yards away, in conversation with Mrs. Blain, a female figure in a boating costume of cream flannel braided with coral pink. "Look?" I exclaimed, glad to avoid responding. "You have another visitor, I think." She glanced in the direction I indicated, then hastened forward to greet the new-comer. The slim-waisted figure turned, and next second I recognised the strikingly handsome profile of Eva Glaslyn, the mysterious woman I secretly loved with such passionate ardour and affection. "Come, Frank, let me introduce you," Mary cried, after enthusiastically kissing her friend. I stepped forward, and as I did so, she turned and fixed on me her large, blue laughing eyes. Not a look, not an expression of her pure countenance was altered. As I gazed into those eyes I saw that they were as dear as the purest crystal, and that I could look through them straight into her very soul. I bowed and grasped the tiny, refined hand she held forth to me--that soft hand which I had once before touched--when it was cold and lifeless. CHAPTER ELEVEN. BEAUTY AT THE HELM. Together we stood on the lawn near the river-bank gossiping, and as I looked into Eva's flawless face, whereon the expression had now become softened, I longed to tell her the most sacred secret of my heart. Had she, I wondered, recognised in me the man she encountered in St. James's Park when on that mysterious errand of hers? What could have been the nature of that errand? Whom did she go there to meet?