She sat up and beheld a young man, a very fine and modish-looking young gentleman indeed, who advanced with great strides, brought himself to a sudden halt within the shady little dell, and casting swift looks from side to side, as if to make sure he was not observed, flung his hat on the ground and stood staring. Pamela, shielded from observation by a clump of bushes, watched with a sudden and inexplicable feeling of apprehension, which grew as she caught sight of a drawn countenance, deathly pale. “For sure,” thought she, “the poor gentleman’s desperate!” The next instant she sprang to her feet with a scream; he had drawn a pistol from his breast pocket and, with an odd jerk, almost as if forced by some malevolent power which he could not withstand, raised it to his temple. Pamela was one of those rare beings in whom swift wits unite with swift action. She hurled herself upon the would-be suicide and wrenched the weapon from his hand. For a strange moment they stood facing each other, eye into eye. It seemed to her as if the whole world held nothing but those mad eyes of his, dilated, starting, haunted; the pupils were contracting and expanding in the violet irises as with some dreadful pulse of his heart. Suddenly his whole being relaxed; he smiled. “Good heavens,” she cried, “’tis the young gentleman on the doorstep!” “And you,” said he, “are the young lady in the area. If the next world’s as odd as this, ’twill be a vastly comic place.” “Oh!” cried Pamela, who did not at all like this reference to Eternity. Still less did she like the manner in which he put out his hand towards the pistol. “By your leave, my dear. My property, I believe?” She strove to avoid his grasp; she fought to keep the weapon in her hand. “Why, what farce is this?” he exclaimed, laughing. “What do you imagine, my good girl? May not an actor practise his greatest scene without----? Why, what prodigious nonsense have you got into your pretty head? The things’s not even loaded!” “Ah, but what did you say yourself just now?” She was a vigorous creature, and terror lent her strength. She remained in possession of the dangerous implement. “What did I say? I merely tried the effect of my most telling speech upon you--with fine result. If my public are as impressionable----” Once more he stretched out his hand, but, leaping from him, the girl raised the pistol, aimed at the nearest bush, pulled the trigger, and fired. As the reverberations died away she turned a face, drained of colour but triumphant, upon him. “So much for your story, Mr. Actor!” cried she. “Why, you’re too quick for me!” he answered, with a moody change, thrust his hands into his pockets, began to pace the dell backwards and forwards before her, kicking his hat each time he passed it. She thought that he was no more than a boy, for all his manly growth, and her heart went out to him.