"You do not know how frightful it was for the moment," she said. "I had never felt dizzy in my life before. I had nothing with which I could save myself, and I could not jump down on the tables below, because there was no footing: I should only have thrown down the others. How quick you were, and how kind! But you are always kind."

"Few would agree with you there, Miss Douglas. Mr. Dexter has far more of what is called kindness than I have," said Heathcote, carelessly.

They were sitting in the same arbor. Anne was silent a moment, as if pondering. "Yes," she said, thoughtfully, "I believe you are right. You are kind to a few; he is kind to all. It would be better if you were more like him."

"Thanks. But it is too late, I fear, to make a Dexter of me. I have always been, if not exactly a grief to my friends, still by no means their pride. Fortunately I have no father or mother to be disturbed by my lacks; one does not mind being a grief to second cousins." He paused; then added, in another tone, "But life is lonely enough sometimes."

Two violet eyes met his as he spoke, gazing at him so earnestly, sincerely, and almost wistfully that for an instant he lost himself. He began to speculate as to the best way of retaining that wistful interest; and then, suddenly, as a dam gives way in the night and lets out the flood, all his good resolutions crumbled, and his vagrant fancy, long indulged, a.s.serted its command, and took its own way again. He knew that he could not approach her to the ordinary degree and in the ordinary way of flirtation; she would not understand or allow it. With the intuition which was his most dangerous gift he also knew that there was a way of another kind. And he used it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE STARTED SLIGHTLY."]

His sudden change of purpose had taken but a moment. "Lonely enough," he repeated, "and bad enough. Do you think there is any use in trying to be better?" He spoke as if half in earnest.

"We must all try," said the girl, gravely.

"But one needs help."

"It will be given."

He rose, walked to the door of the arbor, as if hesitating, then came back abruptly. "_You_ could help me," he said, standing in front of her, with his eyes fixed upon her face.

She started slightly, and turned her eyes away, but did not speak. Nor did he. At last, as the silence grew oppressive, she said, in a low voice: "You are mistaken, I think. I can not."

He sat down again, and began slowly to excavate a hole in the sand with the end of his cane, to the consternation of a colony of ants who lived in a thriving village under the opposite bench, but still in dangerous proximity to the approaching tunnel.

"I have never pretended to be anything but an idle, useless fellow," he said, his eyes intent upon his work. "But my life does not satisfy me always, and at times I am seized by a horrible loneliness. I am not all bad, I hope. If any one cared enough--but no one has ever cared."

"You have many friends," said Anne, her eyes fixed upon the hues of the western sky.

"As you see them. The people here are examples of my friends."

"You must have others who are nearer."

"No, no one. I have never had a home." He looked up as he said this, and met her eyes, withdrawn for a moment from the sunset; they expressed so much pity that he felt ashamed of himself. For his entire freedom from home ties was almost the only thing for which he had felt profoundly grateful in his idle life. Other boys had been obliged to bend to the paternal will; other fellows had not been able to wander over the world and enjoy themselves as he had wandered and enjoyed. But--he could not help going on now.

"I pretend to be indifferent, and all that. No doubt I succeed in appearing so--that is, to the outside world. But there come moments when I would give anything for some firm belief to anchor myself to, something higher and better than I am." (The tunnel was very near the ants now.) "I believe, Miss Douglas, I can not help believing, that _you_ could tell me what that is."

"Oh no; I am very ignorant," said Anne, hurriedly, returning to the sunset with heightened color.

"But you believe. I will never make a spectacle of myself; I will never ask the conventional questions of conventional good people, whom I hate.

_You_ might influence me--But what right have I to ask you, Anne? Why should I think that you would care?"

"I do care," said the low voice, after a moment, as if forced to answer.

"Then help me."

"How can I help you?"

"Tell me what you believe. And make me believe it also."

"Surely, Mr. Heathcote, you believe in G.o.d?"

"I am not sure that I do."

She clasped her hands in distress. "How _can_ you live!" she cried, almost in tears.

Again Heathcote felt a touch of compunction. But he could not make himself stop now; he was too sincerely interested.

"There is no use; I can not argue," Anne was saying. "If you do not _feel_ G.o.d, I can not make you believe in him."

"Tell me how _you_ feel; perhaps I can learn from you."

Poor Anne! she did not know how she felt, and had no words ready.

Undeveloped, unused to a.n.a.lysis, she was asked to unfold her inmost soul in the broad garish light of day.

"I--I can not," she murmured, in deep trouble.

"Never mind, then," said Heathcote, with an excellent little a.s.sumption of disappointment masked by affected carelessness. "Forget what I have said; it is of small consequence at best. Shall we go back to the house, Miss Douglas?"

But Anne was struggling with herself, making a desperate effort to conquer what seemed to her a selfish and unworthy timidity. "I will do anything I can," she said, hurriedly, in a low voice.

They had both risen. "Let me see you to-morrow, then."

"Yes."

"It is a beginning," he said. He offered his arm gravely, almost reverently, and in silence they returned to the house. It seemed to Anne that many long minutes pa.s.sed as they walked through the garden, brushed by the roses on each side: in reality the minutes were three.

For that evening meteors had been appointed by the astronomers and the newspapers. They were, when they came, few and faint; but they afforded a pretext for being out on the hill. Anne was there with Mr. Dexter, and other star-gazers were near. Heathcote and Rachel, however, were not visible, and this disturbed Dexter. In spite of himself, he could never be quite content unless he knew where that dark-eyed woman was. But his inward annoyance did not affect either his memory or the fine tones of his voice. No one on the hill that night quoted so well or so aptly grand star-like sentences, or verses appropriate to the occasion.

"When standing alone on a hill-top during a clear night such as this, Miss Douglas," he said, "the roll of the earth eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. We are now watching our own stately progress through the stars."

"Hear Dexter quote," said Heathcote, in his lowest under-tone, to Rachel. They were near the others, but, instead of standing, were sitting on the gra.s.s, with a large bush for background; in its shadow their figures were concealed, and the rustle of its leaves drowned their whispers.

"Hush! I like Mr. Dexter," said Rachel.

"I know you do. You will marry that man some day."

"Do _you_ say that, Ward?"

An hour later, Anne, in her own room, was timidly adding the same name to her own pet.i.tions before she slept.

The next day, and the next, they met in the garden at sunset as before, and each time when they parted she was flushed and excited by the effort she was making, and he was calm and content. On the third afternoon they did not meet, for there was another picnic. But as the sun sank below the horizon, and the rich colors rose in the sky, Heathcote turned, and, across all the merry throng, looked at her as if in remembrance. After that he did not see her alone for several days: chance obstacles stood in the way, and he never forced anything. Then there was another unmolested hour in the arbor; then another. Anne was now deeply interested. How could she help being so, when the education of a soul was placed in her hands? And Heathcote began to be fascinated too.

By his own conversion?

August was nearly over. The nights were cool, and the early mornings veiled in mist. The city idlers awakened reluctantly to the realization that summer was drawing to its close; and there was the same old surprise over the dampness of the yellow moonlight, the dull look of the forest; the same old discovery that the golden-rods and asters were becoming prominent in the departure of the more delicate blossoms. The last four days of that August Anne remembered all her life.

On the 28th there occurred, by unexpected self-arrangement of small events, a long conversation of three hours with Heathcote.