She had lifted the lantern now, and I was striving to touch the wax taper to the wick, with imminent danger to my bare fingers.

“They don’t really light well when the oil’s out,” she observed, with an exasperating air of wisdom.

I took it from her hand and shook it close to my ear.

“Yes; of course, it’s empty,” I muttered disdainfully.

“Oh, Mr. Glenarm!” she cried, turning away toward my grandfather.

I heard his stick beating the rough path several yards away. He was hastening toward Glenarm House.

“I think Mr. Glenarm has gone home.”

“Oh, that is too bad!” she exclaimed.

“Thank you! He’s probably at the chapel by this time. If you will permit me—”

“Not at all!”

A man well advanced in the sixties should not tax his arteries too severely. I was quite sure that my grandfather ran up the chapel steps; I could hear his stick beating hurriedly on the stone.

“If you wish to go farther”—I began.

I was indignant at my grandfather’s conduct; he had deliberately run off, leaving me alone with a young woman whom I particularly wished to avoid.

“Thank you; I shall go back now. I was merely walking to the gate with Mr. Glenarm. It is so fine to have him back again, so unbelievable!”

It was just such a polite murmur as one might employ in speaking to an old foe at a friend’s table.

She listened a moment for his step; then, apparently satisfied, turned back toward St. Agatha’s. I followed, uncertain, hesitating, marking her definite onward flight. From the folds of the cloak stole the faint perfume of violets. The sight of her, the sound of her voice, combined to create—and to destroy!—a mood with every step.

I was seeking some colorless thing to say when she spoke over her shoulder

“You are very kind, but I am not in the least afraid, Mr. Glenarm.”

“But there is something I wish to say to you. I should like—”

She slackened her step.

“Yes.”

“I am going away.”

“Yes; of course; you are going away.”

Her tone implied that this was something that had been ordained from the beginning of time, and did not matter.

“And I wish to say a word about Mr. Pickering.” She paused and faced me abruptly. We were at the edge of the wood, and the school lay quite near. She caught the cloak closer about her and gave her head a little toss I remembered well, as a trick compelled by the vagaries of woman’s head-dress.

“I can’t talk to you here, Mr. Glenarm; I had no intention of ever seeing you again; but I must say this—”

“Those notes of Pickering’s—I shall ask Mr. Glenarm to give them to you—as a mark of esteem from me.”

She stepped backward as though I had struck her.