"Are you married?" he asked, so guilelessly that she blushed and denied it with haste. His head was spinning in a sea of pink clouds. Harps were playing somewhere; it may have been the breeze in the pines. "Amourette," he repeated in a sort of divine daze. "I am--going," she said, in a low voice. "Do you desire to render me miserable for life?" he asked so seriously that at first she scarcely realised what he had said. Then blush and pallor came and went; she caught her breath, looked up at him, beseechingly. "Everything is wrong," she said in the ghost of a voice. "Things are hurrying me--trying to drive me headlong. I must go. Let me go, now." And she sat very still, and closed her eyes. A second later she opened them. "Why did you come?" she asked almost fiercely. "There was no use in it! Why did you come into these woods for that foolish newspaper? By this time the Associated Press, the police, and the families of the men you are looking for have received letters from every one of the four missing young men, saying that they are perfectly well and happy and expect to return--after their honeymoons." Flushed, excited, beautiful in her animation, she faced the astounded young man who stared at her wildly through his eye-glasses. After a while he managed to ask whether she wished him to believe that these four young men had each eloped with their soul mates. She bit her lip. "To be accurate," she said in a low voice, "somebody eloped with each one of them." "How? I don't understand!" "I don't wish you to. . . . Good-bye." "You mean," he demanded, incredulously, "that four girls ran away with these four big, hulking young men?" "Practically." "That's ridiculous! Besides, it's impossible! Besides--women don't run men off like cattle rustlers. Man is the active agent in elopements, woman the passive agent." She did not answer. "Isn't she?" She made no reply. He said: "Amourette, shall I illustrate what I mean--with you as the passive agent?" The girl bent over a little, then with a sudden movement she dropped her head in her hands. A moment later he saw a single tear fall between her fingers. He looked east, west, north, south, and finally up into the sky. Seeing nobody, the silly expression left his otherwise interesting face; a graver, gentler light grew in his eyes. And he put one arm around her supple waist. "Something is dreadfully wrong," he said; "all this must be explained--our strange encounter, our speaking, our talking at cross purposes, our candid interest in each other--the sudden, swift, unfeigned friendship that was born the instant that our eyes encountered----" "I know it. It _was_ born. Oh, I know it. I _know_ it, and I could not help it--somehow--somehow----" "It--it was almost like--like--love at first sight," he whispered. "It was--something like it--I am afraid----" "Do you think it _was_ love?" "I don't know. . . . Do you?"