“Try and forget my words, Holly,” he wrote, “and forgive me and let us be good friends again just as we always have been. I am going over to see you Saturday evening to ask forgiveness in person, but I shan’t bother you for more than a couple of hours.” Holly, too, had long since repented, and was anxious to forgive and be forgiven. The thought of losing Julian’s friendship just now when, as it seemed, she needed friendship so much, had troubled and dismayed her, and when his letter came she was quite prepared to go more than halfway to effect a reconciliation. Her answer, written in the first flush of gratitude, represented Holly in her softest mood, and Julian read between the lines far more than she had meant to convey. He folded it up and tucked it away with the rest of her letters and smiled his satisfaction. [Illustration] At Waynewood in those days life for Holly and Winthrop was an unsatisfactory affair, to say the least. Each strove to avoid the other without seeming to do so, with the result that each felt piqued. In Winthrop’s case it was one thing to keep out of Holly’s presence from motives of caution, and quite another to find that she was avoiding him. He believed that his secret was quite safe, and so Holly’s apparent dislike for his society puzzled and disturbed him. When they were together the former easy intimacy was absent and in its place reigned a restlessness that made the parting almost a relief. So affairs stood when on the subsequent Saturday Julian rode over to Waynewood again.