"You are hard," she said unexpectedly. The accusation hit him; it was what he had recently called himself. "And you're wrong. I understand better than you do--perhaps because I'm a woman, and have suffered myself." "You are not a woman," he said, with sudden gentleness of manner. "You are a child almost, and to children their sorrows appear disproportionately great. As for suffering! ... Who among us can expect to escape his share? And a little suffering is not harmful. The human heart that hasn't been through the fire is inclined to be shallow. All the pleasant pools in life are shallow; the great thoughts and the great deeds come from the deep seas." They walked for a while in silence after his last speech. When they had covered a few yards in this manner Julie stopped and offered to take the cycle. "Teddy will be wondering what has become of me," she said. "We are playing tennis this afternoon at Mrs Lawless'." He stopped also and held the machine for her. "I should like to see you again before you go," she added. "Every evening at about five o'clock I will pass your house," he replied. She mounted and rode off, and Lawless, wheeling about, returned to the city, his mind, for all his assertion that he would think no more of what she had said, busy with the picture she had conjured up, a picture which in his larger knowledge of the circumstances struck him as exaggerated and unreal. Julie overtook Bolitho round the first bend. He had dismounted and was waiting for her at the roadside. "I told you to go on," she said, when she came up with him. "I know," he answered. "But I preferred to wait." She slipped from her saddle to the ground, and, seating herself beside him in the hedge, to the young man's intense embarrassment, dissolved into tears. "Oh, don't, Julie!" he pleaded... "Don't! I will go on and leave you, if you wish it, dear." "Silly!" she sobbed. "I don't wish it. You're the best fellow I ever knew. Oh, Teddy! I'm so miserable. I've made a hash of things with the best intentions in the world. There's nobody understands me, but you. And you don't understand altogether." "If you'll give me the cue, I'll try," he declared earnestly, leaning towards her and encircling her with his arm. "You know that I'd do anything on earth to please you. Julie, my darling! I love you so, I can't bear to see you cry." She suddenly sat up straighter, and laughed, and dabbed at her eyes. "I know," she said. "I know... Oh, goodness! what a scarecrow I must look! And anyone might come along." She put up her hands and rearranged her hat. "Is it straight, Teddy!" she asked. "Yes," he answered, and looked her steadily in the eyes. "My dear, don't try to deceive me," he said... "Better hurt my feelings now than later... If it's the other fellow who wins I'll go my way." "Stupid!" she cried, leaning her wet cheek against his shoulder. "There's someone else for the other fellow--only he won't see it."