"No," she said briefly. And he then remembered that the Hon. Cicero W. Gilkins, when he was president of the now defunct club, had installed a Northern man as resident chief game-protector and superintendent at the Foam Island Club House.

[Pg 18]Marche had never even seen Herold; but, through lack of personal interest, and also because he needed somebody to look out for the property, he had continued to pay this man Herold his inconsiderable salary every year, scarcely knowing, himself, why he did not put the Foam Island shooting on the market and close up the matter for good.

[Pg 18]

"It's been five years since I was here, Miss Herold," he said, smiling. "That was in the old days of the club, when Judge Gilkins and Colonel Vyse used to come here shooting every season. But you don't remember them, I fancy."

"I remember them."

"Really! You must have been quite a child."

[Pg 19]"I was thirteen."

[Pg 19]

"Oh, then you are eighteen, now," he said humorously.

Her grave, young lips were only slightly responsive to his smile.

"You have been here a long time," he said. "Do you find it lonely?"

"Sometimes," she admitted.

"What do you do for recreation?"

"I don't think I know what you mean, Mr. Marche."

"I mean for pleasure."

She looked at him out of her clear, gray eyes, then turned her gaze on the window. But she could not see through it; the pane only reflected her face darkly; and to her, for a moment, it seemed that way with her whole pent-up life, here in the Virginia marshes—no [Pg 20]outlet, no outlook, and wherever she turned her wistful eyes only her own imprisoned self to confront her out of the dull obscurity.

[Pg 20]

"I suppose," he said, 

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