It was a boy-and-girl love affair—precocious, to be sure. Clifford adored the little tomboy with her mop of brilliant hair and her impulsiveness and her enchanting ways. She had let him put his seal ring upon her “engagement” finger, in return for his promise to give her a ride on his iceboat. That had been a wonderful sport! Then the tragic moment came when the thin ice broke under a too sudden turn of the skeleton craft, and both children had been thrown into the icy water by the shock. It was Clifford who first came to the surface; it was he who dived and groped under the ice for Margaret, who brought her unconscious to the surface.

When rescue came, the boy’s coat was wrapped about the girl’s shivering form. Both children had had pneumonia from the exposure, but it was Clifford who had not survived it. His last words to his mother had been for Margaret: “Tell her I expect her to be true to me until death joins us. If she is not true, I shall come back to remind her of her promise.”

Clare, reviewing the pathetic and tragic little story, felt deep sympathy for Clifford, Clifford who had given his life for Margaret and was now forgotten. She, too, would gladly have done the same. She lay very quiet, although she did not sleep.

As she heard the library clock chime the hours once, twice, she suddenly moved the handkerchief and pressed it against her lips. As she did it she breathed out a prayer for Ned Wentworth and his happiness. Then with a little sigh, she slipped softly off to sleep.

-4-

Ned Wentworth could not sleep. He filled his pipe and settled down before the hearth where glowed the urbanite’s humble apology for a wood-fire, a gas log. He had felt it impossible to write while he was fresh from the sweet influence of Margaret’s presence; he wanted to think over his happiness. Also, he wanted to think over another thing—an intuition he had had of a something sinister hovering near while he had been in the garden with Margaret.

Exactly as he had told his sweetheart, he had felt burning, envious, malignant eyes fixed upon him from the black shadows of the garden. Even when he had taken Margaret into the lighted room, he had felt this entity near at hand. Who could it be that was trying to penetrate his objective consciousness so strangely? Who could be so bitter against the man who had won Margaret’s love, except some rival? He entertained not the slightest doubt that it was an unsuccessful rival whose bitter envy he had felt. But who?