As soon as she could escape from the dinner table she fled to her room to face this dread thing which had come upon her. All undisciplined and unused to pain, through her mother's careless indulgence, entirely pagan, too, for her religious experience had been but one of form, the girl met this crisis in her life alone. At first the smarting sense of her humiliation predominated and her heart cried for recompense. She would show him what would happen If he dared set her aside. Well she knew she could injure Roderick's chances for success if she set her mind to the task; for was it not her influence that had helped to give him those chances? The force of her anger drove her to action. She threw on her plumed hat and her velvet coat, and slipping out unseen, walked swiftly out of the town and up the lake shore. Every little breeze from the waters sent a shower of golden leaves dropping about her. But the air was still in the woods. It was a perfect autumn day, a true Sabbath day in Nature's world, with everything in a beautiful state of rest after labour. The bronze oaks, the yellow elms and the crimson maples along the shore, now and then dropped a jewel too heavy to be held into the coloured waters beneath. The tower of the little Indian church across the lake pointed a silver finger up out of a soft blue haze. The whole world seemed at peace, in contrast to the tumult within the girl's untrained heart. She seated herself on a fallen log beside the water, the warm, hazy sunshine falling through the golden branches upon her. And sitting there, she felt the spirit of the serene day steal over hers. Wiser and nobler thoughts came to her sorely tried young heart. Some strong unknown Spirit rose up within her and demanded that she do what was right. It was her only guide, she could not reason with it, but she blindly obeyed. There would be long days of pain and hard struggle ahead of her, she well knew, but the Spirit heeded them not at all. She must do what was right. She must act the strong, the womanly part, let the future bring what it would. And she went back from the soft rustling peace of the woods, not a careless, selfishly happy girl any more, but a strong, steady-purposed woman. Roderick was so busy and happy during the ensuing week that he had almost forgotten the existence of Miss Leslie Graham, when she was brought to his dismayed senses by the sound of her voice over the telephone. "Tra-la-la-la, Mr. Roderick McRae," she sang out in her merriest voice. "Why don't you come round and say good-bye to your friends? Are you going to fold your tent like the Arabs and silently steal away?" Roderick began to stammer out an explanation, but she cut him off gaily.