"Besides," said Sylv, with the air of having already given one reason, "I ought to do some of that work I promised for you." "It _would_ be an advantage to begin exploring the swamp before warm weather comes on," Lance agreed. "Well, sir, I'm ready to go at it right straight off," said the other. There was a disproportionate grimness in his tone and manner, Lance imagined. The declaration had apparently cost him an effort. "Lord bless me, Sylv," he exclaimed, abruptly, "how thin and pale you've grown! I didn't fairly notice it until this moment. It evidently won't do you any harm to have a change." "No, sir. I have not been feeling well." "All right. Wait till the afternoon train, and I'll go back to Beaufort with you. I only want to see Adela for a while. Will you come along?" He did not really want Sylv to accompany him; and perhaps this was manifest in his way of speaking. Yet he was somewhat surprised when the young man, turning aside and pretending to adjust some of the articles in the forlorn miniature trunk he had been packing, said: "No, thank you, Mr. Lance. I said good-by to her last night." "It's just as well, that way," said Lance, nervously. "I have something important to tell her, and it will be better to see her alone." Sylv straightened up, and glanced at him almost fiercely. A suspicion occurred to him. "Something important?" he asked. But he did not dare to demand particulars. Nor did it reassure him much, either, to have Lance answer, "Yes; I'll tell you about it afterward." For his part, Lance, in noticing Sylv's abstracted behavior, recalled what Jessie had said as to throwing the young fellow so much with Adela, and wondered whether there was any confirmation of her fear in the constraint which had overtaken his _protégé_. But he was so anxious to see Adela, that he did not stop to reflect on that point more than a moment. Ushered by the matronly principal of the academy into its scrupulously dusted but threadbare parlor, he awaited the girl's advent with a good deal of trepidation. The window-blinds were closed, and the interior was pervaded by a mock twilight. When Adela at last made her appearance, her figure, from the opposite side of the room, looked so dim and uncertain that Lance was strongly reminded of the first time he ever saw her--the time that she rose out of the earth, as it were, and again crumbled back into it. "Miss Reefe!" he said, scarcely above a murmur. "Oh, Mr. Lance! Sylv told me you were coming." And she approached him through the dimness of the room, groping, one might say. They shook hands formally, and to Lance's distraught fancy it seemed as if her fingers withdrew themselves with the recoil of absolute dislike from the touch of his own. "You're not glad to see me, I'm afraid," he began, boldly. "Oh yes--yes I am. What makes you think so?"