"No, it cannot be--it is not THAT!"

North looked over the hill and round the hill, and looked bored.

"Oh, I'm going now. But one moment, Jem! I didn't want to come.
They dragged me here. Good-by."

She raised a burning face and eyes to his. He leaned forward and
imprinted the perfunctory cousinly kiss of the period upon her
cheek.

"Not that way," she said angrily, clutching his wrists with her
long, thin fingers; "you shan't kiss me in that way, James North."

With the faintest, ghost-like passing of a twinkle in the corners
of his sad eyes, he touched his lips to hers. With the contact,
she caught him round the neck, pressed her burning lips and face to
his forehead, his cheeks, the very curves of his chin and throat,
and--with a laugh was gone.


II


Had the kinsfolk of James North any hope that their visit might
revive some lingering desire he still combated to enter once more
the world they represented, that hope would have soon died.
Whatever effect this episode had upon the solitary,--and he had
become so self-indulgent of his sorrow, and so careless of all that