She took the letter. Marsten lifted his broom and went away. He wanted to leave the place and get back to London; but the gardener had cautioned him not to return until the sweeping was finished, while Barney himself impressed upon him the necessity of allowing no suspicion to arise, as it might be needful to despatch another messenger on a similar errand. So he kept on sweeping the _débris_ into little heaps by the side of the path. The schoolgirls disappeared into the house by twos and threes, until he found himself once more alone, and yet he did not see Edna come from the summer-house. He moved nearer and nearer with his work to the place where they had met, hoping to catch a parting glimpse of her as she walked towards the house. At last she came out; but instead of taking the direct path to the house she came towards him, with the thin volume she had been reading in her hand. There was a slight increase of the usual colour in her cheeks, but with that exception she had succeeded in suppressing all trace of her emotion. She looked at him with what seemed, at first, all her former straightforwardness; but, as he met her gaze, he saw it was not quite the same: a misty shadow of difference veiled her honest eyes, so like her father’s, but so much kindlier. “I have brought you this book,” she said, holding it out to him, “and I want you to keep it. It is the story of a messenger who was true to the trust of the one who sent him, and yet who failed.” “But you have not read the book yourself?” he replied, taking the volume, nevertheless. “Oh, yes, I have. I was reading it for the second time to-day.” As he hastily concealed the book under his blouse, he looked anxiously about him, fearing they might be observed, unwilling to compromise her in the least. The craft of a man is rarely equal to that of a woman, no matter how young she may be. Edna smiled as she noticed his perturbation. “There is no one to see us,” she said, “and if there were, it would not matter. They would merely think I was giving improving literature and good advice to an under-gardener--which, indeed, is exactly what I am doing when I tell him to work hard, and--forget!” As Edna said this she opened her hand and allowed to flutter upon the heap at his feet the minute fragments of a letter, which floated down through the air like a miniature snowfall, and she was gone before he could say “Good-by” for the second time. Marsten stood there looking down at the bits of torn paper scattered over the heap, the remnants, undoubtedly, of the letter he had brought; and although he had had no word of encouragement--which, in spite of his disclaimer, he had yearned to hear--each separate piece of white paper reflected upwards to him a ray of hope. CHAPTER XXV.