"Regret!" She smiled at the speech--or was it a smile? Her lips had moved, but it was as though they had done so in answer to some prompting of her soul. "Regret! Do you remember you asked me what I would think if you remained? Well, I thought, if you did, there were dreams which do come true." At this avowal she was so radiant yet so troubled that Roland detained her hand. "She really loves," he mused; "and so do I." And it may be, the forest aiding, that, in the answering pressure which he gave, such heart as he had went out and mingled with her own. "Between us now," he murmured, "it is for all of time." "Roland, how I waited for you!" Again her lips moved and she seemed to smile, but now her eyes were no longer in his, they were fixed on some vista visible only to herself. She looked rapt, but she looked startled as well. When a girl first stands face to face with love it allures and it frightens too. Roland dropped her hand; he caught his horse and mounted it. In a moment he was at her side again. "Justine!" And the girl turning to him let her fresh lips meet and rest upon his own. Slowly he disengaged the arm with which he had steadied himself on her waist. "If I lose you now--" he began. "There can be no question of losing," she interrupted. "Have we not come into our own?" "But others may dispute our right. There is your cousin, to whom I thought you were engaged; and there is your father." "Oh, as for Guy--" and she made a gesture. "Father, it is true, may object; but let him. I am satisfied; in the end he will be satisfied also. Why, only the other day I wrote him you were here." "H'm!" At the intelligence he wheeled abruptly. Already Justine had turned, and lowering her crop she gave her horse a little tap. The beast was willing enough; in a moment the two were on a run, and as Roland's horse, a broncho, by-the-way, one of those eager animals that decline to remain behind, rushed forward and took the lead, "Remember!" she cried, "you are not to leave me now." But the broncho was self-willed, and this injunction Roland found or pretended it difficult to obey; and together, through the green lane and out of it, by long, dismal fields of rice, into the roomy squalor of the village and on to the hotel, they flew as though some fate pursued. Justine never forgot that ride, nor did Roland either. At the verandah steps Mrs. Metuchen was in waiting. "I have a telegram from your father," she called to Justine. "He wishes you to return to-morrow." "To-morrow?" the girl exclaimed. "Thorold has learned I am here, and has told," her lover reflected. And swinging from his saddle he aided the girl to alight. "To-morrow," Mrs. Metuchen with large assumption of resignation replied; "and we may be thankful he did not say to-day."