It would have been so natural that he should pass that way, just as she was halting at the entrance to the bridle-path.

How unspeakably dreadful it would have been to be discovered thus spying out his dwelling-place when she had so strictly forbidden him to attempt to see her! The blush burned upon her cheeks--she had done a thing so undignified, so ill befitting her magnificent superiority.

For a moment she was desperately ashamed.

But for all that, she could not repress the glad delight she felt at knowing that he was there after all; that, if he had kept his word, in avoiding her, he had, nevertheless, also fulfilled his intention of spending the summer in Saracinesca.

He had even been there since Easter, and the story of his going to the North had been a mere invention of the newspapers.