He went on casting his line, moving from stone to stone, dropping down the bank, ascending it, as if the hooking of a trout was something to him.

Was he feeling to his marrow that as soon as those other two figures rounded the bend in the stream he and she would have the world to themselves?
Ah, of course he felt it, but was it quite as much to him as it was to her?
"Not quite so much," she said bravely to herself.

"I don't want it to be quite so much--but nearly." [Illustration: She did not look up, she waited.] And now they were alone as no two can be except those who love; for when the third person leaves them they have a universe to themselves, and it is closed in by the heavens, and the air of it is the consciousness of each other's presence.

She sat motionless now--trembling, exulting.

She could no longer hear the talking of the water, but she heard his step.