Evidently he did. The driver reined up at the moment in response to a suggestion from some one in a forward seat, and there suddenly appeared by the wayside, striding out from the shelter of the sumachs, the athletic figure of the stranger. "Go ahead!" he called, in a deep chest-voice that had an unmistakable ring to it,--the tone that one so readily recognizes in men accustomed to prompt action and command. "I'm going across lots." And, swinging his heavy stick, with quick, elastic steps and erect carriage the man in gray plunged into a wood-path and was gone. "Alice," said Aunt Grace, again, "that man is an officer, I'm sure, and you have driven him into exile and lonely wandering. I've seen so much of them when visiting my brother in the old days before my marriage that even in civilian dress it is easy to tell some of them. Just look at that back, and those shoulders! He has been a soldier all his life. Horrors! suppose it should be Captain Armitage himself!" Miss Renwick looked genuinely distressed, as well as vexed. Certainly no officer but Captain Armitage would have had reason to leave the stage. Certainly officers and their families occasionally visited Sablon in the summer-time, but Captain Armitage could hardly be here. There was comforting assurance in the very note she held in her hand. "It cannot be," she said, "because Mr. Jerrold writes that they have just heard from him at Sibley. He is still at the sea-shore, and will not return for a month. Mr. Jerrold says he implored Captain Chester to let him have three days' leave to come down here and have a sail and a picnic with us, and was told that it would be out of the question." "Did he tell you any other news?" asked Mrs. Maynard, looking up from her letter again,--"anything about the german?" "He says he thinks it a shame we are to be away and--well, read it yourself." And she placed it in her mother's hands, the dark eyes seriously, anxiously studying her face as she read. Presently Mrs. Maynard laid it down and looked again into her own, then, pointing to a certain passage with her finger, handed it to her daughter. "Men were deceivers ever," she said, laughing, yet oracularly significant. And Alice Renwick could not quite control the start with which she read,-- "Mr. Jerrold is to lead with his old love, Nina Beaubien. They make a capital pair, and she, of course, will be radiant--with Alice out of the way." "That is something Mr. Jerrold failed to mention, is it not?" Miss Renwick's cheeks were flushed, and the dark eyes were filled with sudden pain, as she answered,-- "I did not know she was there. She was to have gone to the Lakes the same day we left." "She did go, Alice," said her mother, quietly, "but it was only for a brief visit, it seems."