Rolph came nearer and nearer, his way leading him so close to where his cousin crouched that it seemed impossible that he could go by without seeing her, held there by a man whom he would look upon as the scum of the earth. The agony of shame and mortification she suffered was intense, the greater because her presence here was due to the fact that she had vowed that, in spite of all, she would yet be Rolph's wife, the mistress of The Warren. As her cousin came on, and she felt Caleb's arm tightening about her, a strange giddiness made her brain swim, and the objects about her grew misty; but clearly seen in advance of this mist was her cousin's face, his eyes fixed upon the very spot where she was hiding, and plunging through the leaves to search her out, to drag her forth and upbraid her with being a disgrace to her sex, a woman utterly lost to all sense of shame. And all the time, throb, throb, throb, with heavy beat, she could feel Caleb Kent's heart, and a twitching sensation in the muscle of his arm, as, influenced by the man's thoughts of flight or violence, he loosened his grip, or held her more tightly still. "He must see us," thought Marjorie. "Oh, if I could only die!" Close up now, and as he came nearer Rolph struck sharply with his stick at a loose strand which projected half across his path. He must see them; he could not help seeing them, thought Marjorie; and then her heart stood still, and the mist began to close her in, for, to her horror, the culmination of her shame seemed to have arrived. Rolph stopped short, leaned over, apparently to part the brambles and gaze through them at the hiding pair, and then muttered something half aloud as he reached over more and more till his face was not six feet from his cousin's, staring up at him with her eyes full of horror. A guilty conscience needs no accuser; so runs the old proverbial saying. Rolph had caught sight of an extra large blackberry and he had reached out and picked it, more from habit, fostered by a country life, than desire, and then passed on. A long time appeared to elapse, during which Marjorie lay listening to steps which thundered upon her ear, before a voice, that sounded as if it came from far away, whispered,-- "It's all right, now. I don't think he saw." Marjorie looked at the speaker strangely, and then turned away, plunging into the thickest part of the wood to try and grow calm before making her way home, and in perfect unconsciousness of the fact that, not twenty yards away, Caleb Kent was following her, gliding from tree to tree, and always keeping her in sight.