The girl was already becoming depressed by a presentiment of the dull, stagnant days to come. Scoville had been lost in the great outside, unknown world completely. She was suffering from reaction after the strong excitements and fatigues of her experience. Her two lovers, remaining on the scene, possessed a sort of goading interest which compelled her to think of them, but she contemplated their near departure without regret. Nothing in her nature answered to their looks, words and evident desires. She felt that she would as soon marry one as the other, and that she would rather be buried beside Captain Hanfield and take the journey of which Uncle Lusthah had quaintly spoken than wed either. Yet in her lassitude she feared that she could now be compelled to marry either or any one if enough active force was employed, so strangely had ebbed her old fearless spirit. It were with a kind of wondering pity that she looked at Maynard and saw the evidences of an honest, ardent attachment. "Why does he feel so?" she asked herself. "I have done nothing for him, given no encouragement, and would not care if I never saw him again. I merely wish him well, as I do so many others. Why can't he see this, and just act on the truth? He says he is coming to see me every chance he gets and tries to make me feel that he'll never give me up. Perhaps if I should let him speak plainly he would see how useless it all would be." Circumstances apparently favored the half-formed purpose. Languid from the heat of the day, she went out on the piazza after supper, sat down on the upper step and leaned against a rose-entwined pillar. Maynard was entranced by the picture she made and promptly availed himself of the opportunity. Every one else had disappeared except Zany, of whom glimpses could be caught through the open windows of the supper-room; but she did not count. Sitting on a lower step so as to be in a measure at her feet Maynard began. "Miss Baron, I am thinking very sadly, if you are not, over the fact that I am to go away in the morning." "Yes," she replied, half-consciously ignoring his personal view, "the old house and plantation will soon be as quiet and deserted as before." "Do you regret this?" "I scarcely know. I am very tired and feel sad over all that has happened. Perhaps I'll feel differently by and by, when I've rested and had time to think." "Oh, Miss Baron, if you knew how earnestly I hope to be remembered in those thoughts, to give you something definite to think of." She had scarcely the energy to check him, the thought occurring more than once, "I might just as well let him speak his mind and see how vain his hope is."