Charley Bonair was not going to leave just now, oh, no! He would stay and see what lark the girl was up to, anyway. Perhaps time had changed her, and she was not the good little angel of the past! Somehow he felt himself grow jealous at the thought, even while the quick thought came she might now be more to him. Why did he feel all at once that he hated little Berry? Was it that she had destroyed his faith? I deemed her the one thing undefiled By the air we breathe, in a world of sin; The truest, the tenderest, purest child, A man ever trusted in. What was this reproach for a tryst she had failed to keep? He would listen, he would learn her sin. He leaned forward on his tiptoes, and got a good peep through the rose branches at Berry and her interlocutor. The latter looked like an old Indian squaw, picturesque draped in an old red blanket, with a feathered headdress over her seamy, swarthy face. “Ah, a woman!” the young fellow thought to himself in keen relief, that made his heart throb tumultuously. He heard the coarse, guttural voice replying cajolingly: “Have you forgot so soon, girl, the charm I promised when I told your fortune, that was to avert a threatening doom, and bring to you wealth and happiness?” Berry gave a little cry of remembrance and pleading: “Oh, I remember it all now. Forgive me that I forgot. Oh, I was so sad, so sorrowful, I could think of nothing but the tale you told me of the death of my old mother. Oh, is it really, really true?” The agony of those upraised eyes was enough to pierce a heart of stone, but the old crone answered malevolently: “It is true as that the moon and stars shine in the heavens to-night. She thought that you had fled with a rich young man, who meant to ruin you, and she cursed you for your sin and her disgrace.” “Oh, but I am innocent and pure as the day I was born! I pray Heaven that in death she knows the truth!” moaned the poor girl wildly. “We have no time for all this rant! It is time for honest folks to be in their beds!” rejoined the Indian impatiently. Charley Bonair started, asking himself: “Now, where have I heard that voice before, and that old saw in the same tone? It is strangely familiar, somehow, with a difference that baffles one!” He heard Berry murmur again sobbingly: “Forgive me, I did not mean any harm. Have you brought the charm with you?” Then indeed Charley Bonair could scarcely keep from betraying himself by laughing outright. “I left it around the path there in my bundle. Come with me and you shall have it.” “I thank you,” Berry answered, simply and sweetly, and moved away by her side, a slim, white, girlish figure by the tall, grotesque figure of the other. Bonair started to follow, then drew quickly back.