Olivia felt that gap, that chasm in existence, when a shadowy array of vague hopes and fears suddenly falls to the ground. Pembroke had been certainly too confident and much too overbearing--but--it was over. When this thought struck her, she was walking slowly down the broad box-bordered walk to the gate. The young April moon was just appearing in the evening sky. She stopped suddenly and stood still. The force of her own words to him smote her. He would certainly never come back. She turned and flew swiftly back to the upper part of the garden, and stood in the very spot by the lilac hedge, and went over it all in her mind. Yes. It was then over for good--and he probably would not marry for a long, long time. She remembered having heard Cave and her father speak of Pembroke’s half joking aversion to matrimony. It would be much better for him if he did not, as he had made up his mind to enter for a career. But strange to say this did not warm her heart, which felt as heavy as a stone. Presently she went into the house, and was quite affectionate and gay with her father, playing the piano and reading to him. “Fathers are the pleasantest relations in the world,” she said, as she kissed him good-night, earlier in the evening than usual. “No fallings out--no misunderstandings--perfect constancy. Papa, I wouldn’t give you up for any man in the world.” “Wouldn’t you, my dear?” remarked that amiable old cynic incredulously. CHAPTER XIII. ONE of the drawbacks of Arcadia is that everybody knows everybody else’s business--and the possibility of this added to Pembroke’s extreme mortification. He thought with dread of the Colonel’s elaborate pretense of knowing nothing whatever about the affair, Mrs. Peyton’s sly rallying, Mr. Cole’s sentimental condolence--it was all very exasperating. But solely to Olivia’s tact and good sense both escaped this. Not one soul was the wiser. Olivia, however she felt, and however skillfully she might avoid meeting Pembroke alone, was apparently so easy, so natural and self-possessed, that it put Pembroke on his mettle. Together they managed to hoodwink the whole county about their private affairs--even Colonel Berkeley, who, if he suspected anything, was afraid to let on, and Miles, whose devotion to Olivia became stronger every day.