Other men had flattered her, and she had smiled, knowing what their compliments were worth, but she could not smile now.

Then she roused herself and went in quietly.
Festing met her next morning while the sun rose above the rounded masses of the beech wood, and entering a dewy pasture they skirted a fence half-smothered in briars.

Both felt invigorated by the freshness of the morning and brushed across the sparkling grass, engaged in careless talk.

By and by as Helen stooped to pick a mushroom a shrill scream came from beyond the fence, and she rose with an angry color in her face.
"Oh!" she said; "that spoils everything!" "What is it ?" Festing asked as the pitiful scream rose again.
"A rabbit, choking, in a snare," she answered with a look of horror.
Festing leaped across a ditch and plunged into the briars.

Helen heard the rotten fence-rails smash and he vanished behind the thorny branches that closed across the gap.