"If you and me had met away off somewheres in some far and distant land, where there wasn't no Lethie or nothing to come between us, do you allow then you could maybe have loved me the same as I love you?" Isabel replied, in a voice she tried to make calm: "Almost any girl would find it an easy thing to fall in love with you." "Not 'almost any girl,' but you," he persisted, gently. "I--I don't know about it," answered Isabel; "I never thought that far along. You see, there _were_ things between us,--Lethie and other things besides,--and that was enough for me, as I told you the day of the funeral meeting. And it's not any use to discuss the matter now. We must be going back down the hill." "Must be going back down the hill," Fult repeated, sadly. He rose to his feet. "Good-bye," he said in a low voice, still gazing with deep sadness into her eyes. "Good-bye," she said, with a catch in her voice, putting forth her hand; "I hope we shall always be friends." Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips and kissed it, slowly, reverently, as one might kiss the hands of the beloved dead. No knight of old--not Sir Philip Sidney himself--could have done the thing more perfectly. Isabel was much moved. Two large tears rolled down from her eyes and splashed on his wrist. Then, as she turned away, he suddenly seized her hand again with both of his own, and covered it with kisses, but this time they were wild, hungry, passionate. Isabel broke from him and ran down the hill; but in the instant of her flight he saw in her face the things he had hoped and planned to see--not only pity and pain, but also very real fear of herself. * * * * * After this the days flew; with rehearsals for the entertainment, work on costumes and the like, every waking moment of Isabel's time was occupied; and, though Fult was on hand most of the time, helping in every possible way, he did not again make the least effort to see her alone, or refer in any way to their conversation on the hill. It was the custom of Isabel, Annette, and the kindergarten teacher, every night after the rehearsals, to go down to the kitchen tent and get something to eat before retiring. Thursday night of the last week Isabel, coming out of the door as the three were about to leave after eating, had an impression of a head vanishing round the tent corner. The shadows of the trees were too dark, however, for her to be at all certain, and, putting it down to weariness and nerves, she dismissed the matter from her mind.