I had been sitting on a stone wall watching the shadows lengthen. I rose now and followed the wall toward a highway along which wagons and an occasional motor-car had passed during my revery. The sloping pasture was rough and frequently sent me along at a trot. The wall that marked the boundary at the roadside was hidden by a tangle of raspberry bushes, and my foot turning on a stone concealed in the wild grasses, I fell clumsily and rolled a dozen yards into a tangle of the berry bushes. As I picked myself up I heard voices in the road, but should have thought nothing of it, had I not seen through a break in the vines, and almost within reach of my hand, Cecilia Hollister talking earnestly to some one not yet disclosed. She was hatless, but had flung a golf-cape over her shoulders. The red scarlet lining of the hood turned up about her neck made an effective setting for her noble head. "Oh, I can't tell you! I can't help you! I must n't even appear to give you any advantage. I went into it with my eyes open, and I 'm in honor bound not to tell you anything. You have said nothing--nothing,--remember that. There is absolutely nothing between us." "But I must say everything! I refuse to be blinded by these absurd restrictions, whatever they are. It's not fair,--it's inviting me into a game where the cards are not all on the table. I 've come to make an end of it!" My hands had suffered by contact with the briars, and I had been ministering to them with my handkerchief; but I fell back upon the slope in my astonishment at this colloquy. Cecilia Hollister I had seen plainly enough, though the man's back had been toward me; but anywhere on earth I should have known Wiggins's voice. I protest that it is not my way to become an eavesdropper voluntarily, but to disclose myself now was impossible. If it had not been Wiggins--but Wiggins would never have understood or forgiven; nor could I have explained plausibly to Cecilia Hollister that I had not followed her from the house to spy upon her. I should have made the noise of an invading army if I had attempted to effect an exit by creeping out through the windrow of crisp leaves in which I lay; and to turn back and ascend the slope the way I had come would have been to advertise my presence to the figures in the road. There seemed nothing for me but to keep still and hope that this discussion between Cecilia Hollister and Hartley Wiggins would not be continued within earshot. To my relief they moved a trifle farther on; but I still heard their voices. [Illustration: This discussion between Cecilia Hollister and Hartley Wiggins.] "I cannot listen to you. Now that I 'm committed I cannot honorably countenance you at all; and I can explain nothing. I came here to meet you only to tell you this. You must go--please! And do not attempt to see me in this way again."