Without replying, she turned to Aaron King appealingly. "I--I left my gloves and fly-book. I was going fishing and called to get them." The artist gave her the articles with a word of regret for having so carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back up the canyon, in the direction from which she had come. When the girl had disappeared among the trees, James Rutlidge said, with his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so unexpectedly. I--" Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir." "No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure you wouldn't care to join us?" "Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from Aaron King and the novelist. "Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport. Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful young woman, that Miss Andrés. Charming companion--either in the mountains or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later." When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language that perhaps it would be better not to put in print. "And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to charges that are not put into words." "I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said Aaron King, savagely. "Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly, and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright, is sure to come." * * * * * When Sibyl Andrés went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when, in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever known.