especially to a girl, of relief that a dreaded hour had been
postponed; the other of chagrin that she was the first.

After a few moments, however, one of the two militant thoughts became
dominant: the feeling of chagrin. With a pang she thought if she
had been a man and summoned for such a purpose, how she would have
hurried to the trysting-place; how the flying of her feet would have
vied with the quick rapturous beating of her heart! With a little
sigh and a blush, she remembered that Leonard did not know the
purpose of the meeting; that he was a friend almost brought up with
her since boy and girl times; that he had often been summoned in
similar terms and for the most trivial of social purposes.

For nearly half an hour Stephen sat on the rustic seat under the
shadow of the great oak, looking, half unconscious of its beauty and
yet influenced by it, over the wide landscape stretched at her feet.

In spite of her disregard of conventions, she was no fool; the
instinct of wisdom was strong within her, so strong that in many ways
it ruled her conscious efforts. Had any one told her that her
preparations for this interview were made deliberately with some of
the astuteness that dominated the Devil when he took Jesus to the top
of a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth at
His feet, she would have, and with truth, denied it with indignation.
Nevertheless it was a fact that she had, in all unconsciousness,
chosen for the meeting a spot which would evidence to a man,
consciously or unconsciously, the desirability for his own sake of
acquiescence in her views and wishes. For all this spreading
landscape was her possession, which her husband would share. As far
as the eye could reach was within the estate which she had inherited