"I don't mind your smoking," she commented, smiling, "but if that's a sign that you have settled down for half an hour of solid comfort, I must interpose. You can smoke as we go along." "It's only half-past five," he said regretfully, holding up his watch to the light. Her reply was forestalled by a sound, slight in itself, and one that would have passed unnoted an hour before, the sharp snapping of a twig somewhere in the darkness behind her. Only when he saw her start, and the widening of her dark eyes, did he realise how much truth had been contained in her jesting confessions of a few moments since. He could see that she was more than startled, that her emotion was one of fright. "Why, it's nothing," he said reassuringly, rising to his feet. "Any little noise sounds loud in the woods at night. It was only a squirrel, or a decayed branch giving way. I 'll prove it to you." He raised his voice and called "Hello, there!" The result was vaguely disconcerting. "I forgot our friend Echo," he said apologetically. With some idea of restoring her composure by his own unconcern, he began to move in the direction from which the sound had come; but he had taken only a few steps when a blot of darkness which had crouched before him like a huge stone or the stump of a tree suddenly detached itself and rose into the form of a man. Leigh had an indistinct vision of a face, of arms that seemed to ward him off, and then the intruder fled without a word, breaking through the woods like a frightened animal. He stumbled back to the fire, and stood listening till the sounds of flight had died away. "Well," he declared, "that was a surprise! A mutual one too, it seems. I don't know which of us was frightened the most, but we got away from each other as fast as we could." "Oh, I knew it!" she cried, beginning to fasten on her hat with trembling fingers. "I had felt for some time that we were not alone." "It was only the keeper," he assured her, "or some tramp, attracted by the firelight and thinking he had stumbled upon the camp of one of his pals. Let's leave him the rest of the grapes, to show that we bear him no ill-will for the shock he has given us. I'll just scrape a ring about the fire to keep it from spreading." "This is my last picnic," she declared, "for this year at least. I couldn't come here again after that fright." "Perhaps it's just as well I happened along," he remarked. "That fellow may have been lurking about the woods all the afternoon, hoping to pick up something from late visitors like ourselves."