"I know the risk well enow. But, oh, Barbara, I cannot live another day without seeing him. Ah, to feel he is so near, so near, and I may not see him, feel his hand, hear his voice. Oh! I cannot endure it," and leaning her head once more against the cold stone pillar of the dial, she burst into a passion of sobs. Barbara regarded her with an expression of helpless bewilderment. "’Tis passing strange," she murmured. "Come, Cis, I am Rupert’s self in face and figure. I will kiss and cozen thee and call thee pretty names to thy heart’s content; why may not that suffice thee?" In spite of her tears Cicely could not repress a smile at this strange offer of a substitute. "’Tis very clear, Barbara, thou hast never loved." "Truly no," was the frank rejoinder. "I know nought of the matter; it passeth my understanding altogether and indeed methinks it is but nonsense. Rupert is very well where he is and you shall see him in a year or two at most. What more can you wish tho’ you were a thousand times in love. Come, Cis, dry thine eyes, and we will send to forbid him to come." But Cicely only wept the more persistently. "Ah! Barbara, thou hast no heart, I must see him once again, indeed I must. I must let him hold me in his arms, and feel him near me. Barbara, you do not understand, but I shall die if I may not see him. Sure thou couldst help me an thou wouldst. My heart will break else. Oh, Barbara! try to understand." Barbara gave a sigh of sheer desperation, then yielded to her cousin’s plea. "’Tis stark madness, Cis," she cried; "but thou shalt have thy way. Only look cheerily and Rupert shall come. But now how to devise it." She clasped her chin in her hands and bent her brows in thought. "What said he in the letter?" "Thou mayest read it, an thou wilt not laugh." Barbara took the note and turned away to pace up and down the lawn lest her cousin should see the involuntary twitching of her lips as she read the tender epistle; it was so strange to her to think of Rupert writing thus—Rupert, who to her seemed the personification of boyish gaiety. As she raised her head from perusing the note her attention was momentarily arrested by a rustling sound from within one of the large laurel bushes bordering the lawn and a strange shimmer behind the leaves. She stared at the bush a moment in surprise and then passed on towards the foot of the garden still deep in thought. Here she paused long, gazing into the stream which there flowed by the garden, her face wrinkled with anxiety and bewilderment as she puzzled her brain over the situation, her eyes darkened with a shadow, of fear. Suddenly with a flash the inspiration came. Her bent brows relaxed, her eyes glanced mischievously, she gave a gasp at the very magnificence of the idea, and breaking into the gayest laughter she fairly danced back to her cousin, clapping her hands with delight.