"My uncle, the Earl of Merrivale."

"What does I'm off mean?"

"It means," said Pritchard, "that they've given him up, and he wants to make friends. He never liked my father or me."

"It means," said Gay generously, "that you are going away?"

"Yes," he said, "at once. But it means more. It means that I've got to find out if I'm—to come back some time?"

"Of course, you are to come back," she said.

Words rose swiftly to Pritchard's lips and came no further. Indeed, he appeared to swallow them.

"And I'm glad you are going to make friends with your uncle," said Gay.

"There'll be such lots of young men here when the season opens," said Pritchard.

"Judging by applications," said Gay, "we shall be swamped with gentlemen of all ages."

Pritchard's melancholy only deepened. "Will you come as far as Carrytown in the Streak?" he asked.

She nodded, and said she would because she had some shopping to do.

During that short, exhilarating rush across the lake, and afterward walking up and down on the board platform by the side of the waiting train, he tried his best to ring a little sentiment out of her, but failed utterly.

The locomotive whistled, and the conductor came out of the village drug-store, staggering slightly.

"I've left all my dry-fly tackle," said Pritchard. "Will you take care of it for me?"

"With pleasure," said Gay.

"I'd like you to use it. It's a lovely rod to throw line."

"All aboard!"

"I'd like to bring you out some rods and things. May I?"

"You bet you may!" exclaimed Gay.

Pritchard sighed. The train creaked, jolted, moved forward, stopped, jerked, and moved forward again. Pritchard waited until the rear steps of the rear car were about to pass.

"Good-by, Miss Gay!"

They shook hands firmly, and Pritchard swung himself onto the moving train. Gay, walking rapidly and presently breaking into a trot, accompanied him as far as the end of the platform. She wanted to say something that would please him very much without encouraging him too much.

"Looks as if I was after you!" she said.

Pritchard's whole soul was in his eyes. And there was a large lump in his throat. Suddenly Gay reached the end of the long platform and stopped running. The train was now going quite fast for an Adirondack train. The distance between them widened rapidly.

"Wish you weren't going," called Gay.

And she saw Pritchard reach suddenly upward and pull the rope by which trains are stopped in emergencies. While the train was stopping and the train hands were trying to find out who had stopped it and why, Pritchard calmly alighted, and returned to where Gay was standing.

"I just had to look at you once more—close," he said; "you never can tell what will happen in this world. I may never see you again, and the thought is killing me. Think of that once in a while, please."

He bent swiftly, caught her hand in his, kissed it, and was gone. Or, if not exactly gone, she saw him no more, because of suddenly blinding tears.