vines, and tore them by the roots. The half-stifled sounds of weeping
that arose from where her face grovelled in the leaves were terrible
to his ears. He knew not what to say or do, but gazed in resourceless
suspense at the strange figure she made. It seemed a cruelly long time
that she lay there, almost at his feet, struggling fiercely with the
fury that was in her.

All at once the paroxysms passed away, the sounds of wild weeping
ceased. Celia sat up, and with her handkerchief wiped the tears and
leafy fragments from her face. She rearranged her hat and the braids of
her hair with swift, instinctive touches, brushed the woodland debris
from her front, and sprang to her feet.

"I'm all right now," she said briskly. There was palpable effort in her
light tone, and in the stormy sort of smile which she forced upon her
blotched and perturbed countenance, but they were only too welcome to
Theron's anxious mood.

"Thank God!" he blurted out, all radiant with relief. "I feared you were
going to have a fit--or something."

Celia laughed, a little artificially at first, then with a genuine
surrender to the comic side of his visible fright. The mirth came back
into the brown depths of her eyes again, and her face cleared itself of
tear-stains and the marks of agitation. "I AM a nice quiet party for
a Methodist minister to go walking in the woods with, am I not?" she
cried, shaking her skirts and smiling at him.

"I am not a Methodist minister--please!" answered Theron--"at least not
today--and here--with you! I am just a man--nothing more--a man who has