"Yes, I expect so. Only I've been out all afternoon, so knew nothing about it. And now I've lost my way!" "Lost your way?" "Yes. I expected to find a footbridge round the corner." "It's round the next one. I sent the car on with my kit, and thought I'd walk up from the station. So we're both making for the same bridge. It's only about two minutes' walk from here." They strolled on side by side, Peter rather silent, and each of them vibrantly conscious of the other's nearness. Suddenly Mallory pulled up and a quick exclamation broke from him as he pointed ahead. "We're done! The bridge is gone!" Nan's eyes followed the direction of his hand. Here the river ran more swiftly, and swollen by last nights storm of wind and rain, it had swept away the frail old footbridge which spanned it. Only a few decayed sticks and rotten wooden stumps remained of what had once been known as the Lovers' Bridge--the trysting place of who shall say how many lovers in the days of its wooden prime? Somehow a tinge of melancholy seemed to hang about the few scraps of wreckage. How many times the little bridge must have tempted men and maidens to linger of a summer evening, dreaming the big dreams of youth--visions which the spreading wings of Time bear away into the Land of Lost Desires. Perhaps some kind hand garners them--those tender, wonderful, courageous dreams of our wise youth and keeps them safely for us against the Day of Reckoning, so that they may weight the scales a little in our favour. Peter stood looking down at the scattered fragments of the bridge with an odd kind of gravity in his eyes. It seemed a piece of trenchant symbolism that the Lovers' Bridge should break when he and Nan essayed to cross it. There was a slight, whimsical smile, which held something of pain, on his lips when he turned to her again. "I shall have to carry you across," he said. She shook her head. "No, thanks. You might drop me. I can wade over." "It's too deep for you to do that. I won't let you drop." But Nan still hesitated. She was caught by sudden panic. She felt that she couldn't let Peter--Peter, of all men in the world--carry her in his arms! "It isn't so deep higher up, is it?" she suggested. "I could wade there." "No, it's not so deep, but the river bed is very stony. You'd cut your feet to pieces." "Then I suppose you'll have to carry me," she agreed at last, with obvious reluctance. "I promise I won't drop you," he assured her quietly. He gathered her up into his arms, and as he lifted her the rough tweed of his coat brushed her cheek. Then, holding her very carefully, he stepped down from the bank into the stream and began to make his way across. Nan had no fear that he might let her fall. The arms that held her felt pliant and strong as steel, and their clasp about her filled her with a strange, new ecstasy that thrilled her from head to foot. It frightened her.