"Mary Van Ralten is a duck," she said joyously, when Power hurried forward. "She has given me half an hour; but I mustn't be a minute later, as she has turned out of her own house to accommodate the Barnstormers from Boston, who are acting for her guests tonight. All Newport will be there. You are coming, Derry. I asked her, and will introduce you afterward. My carriage will wait. But, gracious me, why are you lame?" He was leading her to a couple of reserved chairs in a palm-shaded nook, and she noticed that he walked with a limp. "Happened an accident near the mine quite a time since," he said. "I never heard. I wonder my father didn't mention it. Anyhow, Derry, why have you never written?" "Listen to the pot calling the kettle, or, if that is only a trite simile, listen to the Fairy Queen berating a poor mortal for her own lapses!" "Ah, I have not written since my marriage, it is true, but you treated my hapless missives so cavalierly when I did send them that I hardly dared risk another rebuff." "What do you mean?" he asked thickly. He was priding himself on the ease with which they were establishing new relations, when this unlooked-for development plunged him again into a swift-running current of doubt and foreboding. They were seated now, not side by side as he had planned, but in such wise that Nancy could see his face clearly, she having deliberately pulled her chair round for that purpose. "Exactly what I have said," she answered composedly. "I sent three separate letters to Mr. John Darien Power, the Esperanza Placer Mine, Sacramento--I sha'n't forget the address in a hurry, because I've always longed to ask why you were so ready to desert a friend--and, seeing that not one of them was returned by the postoffice, I had good reason to suppose that they reached you all right. Derry, don't tell me you never got them!" His heart seemed to miss a beat or two. In an instant he guessed the truth, that their correspondence had been burked by malicious contriving; but all he could find to say was: "Did you really write to me?" "Of course, I did. Am I not telling you? And you, Derry, did _you_ write to _me_?" His tongue almost cleaved to the roof of his mouth; for he knew, in that instant, that they were not seated in the comfortable veranda of the Ocean House, but standing side by side on the lip of an abyss. He must not, he dared not, answer truly. He had no right to make wreck and ruin of this bright young life, and none knew so well as he how proudly she would denounce the thievish wiles which had separated them if once she grasped their full import. "It is so long ago," he muttered brokenly. "So many things have occurred since. I have forgotten. I--I can only be sure that I received no letters from you." "You have forgotten!" she repeated slowly.