On the afternoon following Alice Lorraine’s strange adventure, Mr. Langley sat at his study window gazing out over the pickets of the paling towards the bushes and scrub trees which marked the line of the river, but which, being mainly oaks, still hid the stream itself from view. He was ready for Sunday even to the point of having tidied his desk so that it looked unfamiliar. He was conscious--vaguely conscious--of working better and more easily of late--with more spirit. It might be that it was only a sort of rebound after the period of depression into which he had fallen when someone had reminded him of the fact that Ella May, whom he had always thought of as a little girl, would now have been a woman grown, older than her mother had been at her birth, and he had lost the child-companion of his thoughts and wanderings. Even so, something must have happened from without himself to pull him out of that slough. That something was, of course, connected with his wife’s new interest in life--at least in so much of life as was represented by the other Miller girl. It was probably recollection of Anna that made him think at first glance that the figure coming along the avenue at a distance beyond the lane was Anna, but, looking again, he saw that it was someone else--one of the grammar school children, he fancied, though he couldn’t seem to place her. He didn’t try long, for as his eyes dwelt upon that particular spot, something disconcerting came suddenly to him. Last evening as he had walked slowly homewards just before full darkness, he had looked up at this point to see approaching him the figures of a man and woman or youth and maiden whom one glance showed to be intensely interested in one another or in a common subject and who seemed to be strangers to him. Then he had utterly forgotten them. For he had been arrested by a loud chattering in a tree at the roadside and had gone to see why a squirrel should be awake at that time of day. Then, walking on, he had met Alice Lorraine. She was alone, but--the minister shook his head. It seemed now to him that the figure of the girl he had seen walking with the strange man was Alice Lorraine. And yet--it couldn’t be. The man and woman weren’t figments of his imagination, he was sure of that. They must, however, have turned back at that point for some reason. And quite likely he had stood looking for and calling to the squirrel longer than he had realised and Alice had come along meantime. The click of his gate recalled his thoughts sharply. On a sudden the man sat erect and stared--almost glared at the strange yet familiar figure he saw coming slowly up the flagged walk. For an instant he could not believe it--could not credit the evidence of his eyes. Then he recollected the preceding Saturday and--O, that sermon of Sunday! And he groaned within his heart. Had that child been so affected as to sacrifice her vanity thus? It was worse than absurd. It was cruel, monstrous!