they came out of the woods into the road, in view of the hotel.

Dorothea stood still.

"I-I think I'd rather manage the rest alone, if you don't mind."

Gardiner started, dropped her arm, stepped back out of sight among the trees.

"Of course. You naturally would. I ought to have understood before."

"Oh, I didn't mean that!"

"Oh, I think you did. It would hardly do, would it?"

"Oh, no, no, no!" cried Dorothea. She hesitated; he could see her visibly struggling with herself; then she raised her head. Whatever quinine of common-sense he might administer to himself, there was no possibility of mistaking the expression in those pansy-brown eyes. She might have wavered before; she had made up her mind now.

"I _didn't_ mean that," she said. "I never thought of such a thing. It was only that--that--people do talk, if they see things--and suppose you asked me to go for a walk with you again--"

"Do you mean that if I did, you would?"

He got no answer. Lettice had just come out to the gates of the hotel to taste the morning sun, with the kitten squirming on her shoulder; and at sight of her Miss O'Connor ran away.

CHAPTER VIII

AMANDUS, -A, -UM     "Mine is a long and a sad tale," said the Mouse, sighing.

The Bellevue, when Gardiner first set eyes on it, was a cross between a hostelry and a farm, tumbled round three sides of a quadrangle where black-and-white pigs rooted and grunted, among middens and mangy grass, under the windows of the dining-room. The Ardennes hotel of those days had no drains, no baths, no basins bigger than soup-plates and not many towels, no easy-chairs, no salons; in fact, none of the comforts of a refined home. There would be middens outside and the odor of the cow-stable within. On the other hand, the rooms would be clean, the beds comfortable, the food abundant, if peculiar; and the friendly welcome which met the traveler made up for many discomforts.

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