Connie, for it was she, had seen much of the world in one way, but was still a child in another, trusting with her whole soul where she trusted and seeing no fault in those she loved. Her close convent life had kept her ignorant of many things it might have been well for her to know. For a year or more she had been free from the restraint of school and had travelled from place to place with her aunt, doing everywhere the same thing,—a little sight-seeing, a good deal of shopping, and driving, dressing for _table-d’hôte_, where she met the same people night after night and heard the same flow of gossip. Told repeatedly how beautiful she was, sought in marriage, by some whose advances she felt to be an insult, and flattered by all till she was tired of it and longed for some quiet place where there was no sham and everything was real. Many times her thoughts had turned to the farmhouse with a longing to go there again, and her heart always beat faster when she recalled the moonlit evening when she sat with Kenneth on the stone wall and said things to him she would scarcely dare say now that she was older. That she did not hear from the Stannards often was her own fault, for her letters were always promptly answered. She had been so busy in school and since, and she disliked letter writing. She was nearly twenty-two and her own mistress now, with no need to call upon the deacon and no necessity for writing, except for friendship’s sake. But somehow the farmhouse and its inmates, and especially Kenneth, were very distinct in her mind as she walked with this young man, who held her hand as if he had a right to it, and was not spurned as Pondy had been when he touched it in the diligence. He had come into her life at Lucerne, just when she was sick of everything and disgusted with a persistent offer of marriage from a sleepy-eyed Count Costello, many years her senior. She disliked him and was glad when a new comer, over whom the young girls in the hotel were raving, sought her from all the rest. From the first her aunt, who favored Costello and a title, had set her face against him, but it did not matter. Love’s fire was kindled and the light and warmth were very sweet to the trusting, innocent girl. Her lover had followed her to Interlaken, where their acquaintance ripened fast, and they were taking their last walk together, for early the next morning he was to leave for Paris, where friends were awaiting him. “Remember,” he said, as they neared the hotel, “it is till death do us part.” “Yes, till death do us part,” she replied, wondering why there came such a tightness about her heart, as if a cold hand had clutched it. He bade her good-bye that night, after dinner in one of the shadowy corners of the big hotel. “Remember,” he said again, and raised her hand to his lips.