“There was naught of great import in my talk with her,” said he, quickly. He was trembling so much that his sword rattled at his side, and his voice was as hoarse as a raven’s. “But ’tis true I have something of great import to me on my mind, and I cannot but think, Miss Joan, you must know what it is!” “Indeed, sir, I cannot guess your thoughts!” said Joan, though the heightened color in her cheeks belied her words. “Can you not imagine what I feel—what I could not—dared not, say last night? Oh, you do, you must, I think! Sure a man cannot feel what I feel for you without its getting from his heart into his eyes! Don’t you know I love you, Joan?” The change came about in the space of a second. When the last hurried words, husky, tremulous, half whispered, came bursting from his lips, Joan shivered, gave him one glance, and had betrayed herself before she was aware. “You—you care for Ann!” she faltered between two long-drawn breaths. “Pshaw! Not I! I care for Joan. I care for Joan, only Joan!” And at the last word, as she hardly resisted him, he kissed her. It was growing cold even in the sheltered garden, now that the late autumn sun was descending in the sky, and the wind was rising and sending the red leaves fluttering from the boughs of the trees to the earth. But they never heeded it: they would have gone on sitting on that terrace, and walking round and round those flower-beds, for an hour and more, had not Parson Langney’s voice presently startled them by calling— “Joan, Joan, my lass, where art thou?” The girl gave one frightened glance at her lover, forbade him to follow her and speak to her father till she had prepared the way, and fled away like an arrow from a bow. Happy and excited with the joy of successful love, Tregenna was sauntering round the house towards a side-gate out of the park, when Ann’s voice startled him. He knew not whence she had sprung; but she was looking at him from out a clump of bushes with a strange smile on her pallid face. As he started, she burst into a low, mocking laugh. “Ay, sir, kiss while you can; speak low when there’s a fair maid to listen. But the game’s not played out yet!” Upon those words, with a flashing look from her great somber gray eyes, she disappeared abruptly. CHAPTER XVII. AN INNOCENT RIVAL. Now, although Harry Tregenna was in a state of mind more nearly approaching perfect bliss than he had ever been before, with the knowledge that Joan Langney loved him fresh upon him, he could not but feel an uncanny chill when Ann Price uttered her mocking words of warning. “The game’s not played out yet!” He would have followed her, questioned her. But she knew every turn in the park much better than he; and after a few moments spent in looking for her, he gave up the search as an idle one.