“You shall not blame yourself even for that,” says Sylvia. “I deserved all I got for being so—so contrary and provoking. A woman might at least have the grace to tell the truth when she is asked for it.” “She may be tender-hearted about telling it, if it should chance to be an unpleasant truth,” says Charley. “Yet it is best to give a victim the _coup de grâce_—as you gave it to me.” “I think you are very unkind to attach importance to any pettish speech I may have made at such a time as that,” she answers, stooping to gather a flower from a crevice of the rock. “What!” says Charley. “Not attach importance to such a forcible, downright ‘No?’ By Jove! it would be an odd fellow who _didn’t!_” Silence follows this. Sylvia has gone as far as she can go—has said all that a woman can say. She ends the pause by rising and extending her hand for the hat which he is still carrying. “If you wish to abide by it I am quite willing for you to do so,” she says, with the coldness of pride in her voice. “If I wish to abide by it!” repeats Charley, taking the hand, while the hat drops unheeded, and narrowly escapes floating off down-stream again. “Do you think it likely I wish to do so—after all these years? Sylvia, you know that I love you—that I shall love you till I die—but if you are only drawing me back for your amusement, for God’s sake, let me abide by that ‘No!’” The earnestness of this appeal—earnestness so unlike Charley that it startled even me among the ferns—touches Sylvia. She extends her other hand—the soft, gray eyes look at him beseechingly. “Don’t talk like that, Charley!” she says. “You make me sorrier than ever that I uttered that foolish word. I never meant it. How could I mean it when I love you with all my heart? Is that enough?” Enough! One might have been pardoned for thinking so who saw him take her into his arms, and then—ashamed of playing the spy—I go down the hillside and leave them together. * * * * * “Look back!” says Eric, an hour later. “The Blue Ridge is behind you.” We turn with one accord and look back as he directs. The grand, dark-blue heights stand behind us, fold upon fold, peak overlooking peak, knob rising beyond knob, the great crest of the famous Bald in the distance, Harris’s Pinnacle near at hand, towering needle-like in its eminence. And behind these splendid masses the sun is sinking in clouds of ruby and gold, while the tender young moon gazes down from the fleecy sapphire of the upper heaven. And so we bid farewell to the Land of the Sky. THE END.