Somewhere far off children were talking. Their voices warmed and cleansed her mind. There was a stimulating thud of hoofs on the turf-roads. She tried to read now. Her eyes travelled dutifully along the lines of her book, without bringing forth even the phase of a thought from the page of print. A swift step drew her glance down the foot-path. Bellingham was approaching. His shoulders were thrown back, his long arms swinging so that every muscle was in play, striding forward at incredible speed. He filled his lungs with every cubic inch of morning air they could contain, and expelled the volume with gusto. She had once seen a rugged Englishman take his exercise as seriously as this, on the promenade of an Atlantic liner before the breakfast-gong. To all appearances, Bellingham did not have a thought apart from his constitutional. Paula sat very still on the rock. Her slightest movement now would attract his attention. It occurred to her afterwards that she had been like a crippled squirrel huddled in the fork of a tree--the hunter and his dog below.... At the point where the path was nearest her, he halted. The thing happened exactly as she might have conceived it in a story. For a moment he seemed to be searching his mind for the meaning of his impulse to stop. An unforgettable figure, this, as he stood there with lifted head, concentrating upon the vagary which had brought him to a standstill.... Paula may have been mistaken in her terror, but she never relinquished the thought that her proximity was known to him--before his face turned unerringly to the rock and his bright gray eyes filled with her presence. "You are Miss Linster?" he asked, smiling agreeably. She nodded, not trusting her voice. "You attended the first of my Prismatic Hall lectures ten days ago?... I seldom forget a face, and I remember asking one of my committee your name." Paula found it rather a unique effort to hold in mind the truth that she had never spoken to this man before. Then the whole trend of her mental activity was suddenly complicated by the thought that all her past terrors might be groundless. Possibly Madame Nestor was insane on this subject. "It may be that her mad words and my stimulated imagination have reared a monster that has no actuality."