"What kind of a legend is that!" she said, impatiently; and then she went on with her questions. "Why doesn’t anybody ever come round this way?" "I suppose because they know we want the place to ourselves." "And why should we want the place to ourselves?" This was unexpected. He paused. "Ah," said he, "what is the use of my telling you? All your interest is centred on Vin. I suppose a woman can only be interested in one man at any one time." "Well, I should hope so!" the young widow said, cheerfully. "Shall we go round by the rocks or through the trees?" For they were now come to a little wood of birch and larch and pine; and without more ado he led the way, pushing through the outlying tall bracken and getting in underneath the branches. "I suppose," said he, in a rather rueful tone, "that you don’t know what is the greatest proof of affection that a man can show to a woman? No, of course you don’t!" "What is it, then?" she demanded, as she followed him stooping. "Why, it’s going first through a wood, and getting all the spider’s-webs on his nose." But presently they had come to a clearer space, where they could walk together, their footfalls hushed by the carpet of withered fir-needles; while here and there a rabbit would scurry off, and again they would catch a glimpse of a hen-pheasant sedately walking down a glade between the trees. And now their talk had become much more intimate and confidential; it had even assumed a touch of more or less affected sadness. "It’s very hard," he was saying, "that you should understand me so little. You think I am cold, and cynical, and callous. Well, perhaps I have reason to be. I have had my little experience of womankind—of one woman, rather. I sometimes wonder whether the rest are anything like her, or are capable of acting as she did." "Who was she?" his companion asked, timidly. And therewith, as they idly and slowly strolled through this little thicket, he told his tragic tale, which needs not to be set down here: it was all about the James river, Virginia, and a pair of southern eyes, and betrayal, and farewell, and black night. His companion listened in the deep silence of sympathy; and when he had finished she said, in a low voice, and with downcast eyes— "I am sorry—very sorry. But at least there was one thing spared you: you did not marry out of spite." He glanced at her quickly.