A week passed by uneventfully. Arthur continued to improve in health. Checkers drove home each evening tired from his hard day's work. Saturday night a note from Pert arrived, inviting them both to dinner on the following day; a return of courtesies which they accepted with pleasure. Sadie drove up that morning to spend a day or two with her cousin. The dinner passed off pleasantly, and in the afternoon the four took a stroll through the neighboring woods, to a beautiful spot where from the top of a cliff of massive rock they could gaze for miles up the dark, thickly wooded ravine, lying sheer many feet below. Sadie and Arthur walked off together. Checkers and Pert followed leisurely. "Do you think you deserve to be treated so well, after neglecting me as you have lately?" asked Pert. "I have n't been able to get here, Miss Pert," replied Checkers. "The Broadway cable isn't in it with the way I've been pulling to get away; but if Arthur had known I was coming here, we would only have had a speaking acquaintance. I'll tell you, Miss Pert, that poor boy is all broke up about you, and to come down to cases, it ain't very safe for me to be seeing so much of you, when--well, you know he saw you first, and the rights of property----" "Now, listen to me," interrupted Pert, with a stamp of her foot, "Arthur is nothing to me; I do n't love him and I shall never marry him. I 've told him so, and I 'll tell you so. I 've enjoyed having you call here very much, and there 's no reason why you shouldn't come--unless, of course, you would rather not." Ahead, Arthur was carefully helping Sadie over a fallen tree which lay across the path. "He 's playing the system, after all," thought Checkers, "I'll help him push it along. May I come to-morrow night?" he said; "it's the first night I 've got disengaged." "Certainly," laughed Pert. "Sadie is going to stay until Tuesday morning, and--" "Make it Tuesday night." Pert assented with an audible chuckle. And now they had come to the fallen tree, an ancient pine of huge dimensions. Checkers clambered atop of it, and, taking both of Perl's hands, pulled her up; then, from the other side, he supported her tenderly as she jumped to the ground. 'Twas a rapturous moment. The fair, sweet face above him, and the bright, roguish eyes looking down into his; the warm, red lips, half parted in a smile, and coming so near as he carefully lowered her, tempted him sorely. But he resisted; not from any strength of virtue, but because he did not dare to do otherwise. "Thank you," said Pert. Checkers was silent. His emotions of mingled excitement and regret were such that he could not trust his voice; but as they drew near to where Arthur and Sadie were sitting, he purposely drew away from Pert, and feigned a look of general indifference, which was masterly in its way. "I may possibly stay down to-night, Arthur," called Checkers, as he drove out of the door-yard Tuesday morning.