The professor had the faults of an absent-minded man, and the peculiarities of a reticent one! Once his confidence was gained, there was little he withheld, and he never quite remembered what he had told or not told, and so, sometimes, blurted out a secret unwittingly.

It was with no thought of mischief that he said to Montague, "The fellow's wife is dead!"

"Whose?" asked that young man in astonishment.

"Why, Lawson's!"

"Lawson's!" in incredulous horror; "he was not married?"

"Divorced, you know!"

Montague stopped short, the hazy, misty, spring-tide world reeled about him.

"He met me on the quadrangle this morning and told me." The professor did not[Pg 300] add that his haughty manner of doing so had been a most unpleasant and rankling memory all the day; nor did he know that his uneasiness was the cause of his confidence.

"Said that, as I had known the other, he wished me to know this; as if it mattered," testily.

"How long have you known?"

"Since—since Christmas." The professor was hot and cold, and saw with lightning glance his blunder.

But Montague's manner assured him quickly. His instant return to the subject in hand, his quick and voluble speaking on the affairs they had come out to discuss, blinded him. He had been a fool, he told himself, but it made no difference. It did.

They had been sauntering about the farm and out to the edge of the corn-field. Bill at the farther end was replanting. The crows overhead called raucously, the mountain at their side ran sheer to the sky-line with its waves of color, gray, green, and vivid green. The valley far below [Pg 301]shimmered in the heat, and the far-off mountains beyond it lifted slumberous peaks into the veiling blue haze. Montague had felt all its beauty to the full; with his soft hat pulled over his eyes, and his hands thrust in his pockets, he had been loitering happily about showing the professor his spring work.

It had been a season of unnamable happiness to him; joy after joy undreamed, because it was unknown, had blossomed in his heart, like the sweet spring flowers in the circle of the flower-plot, unseen, unthought-of, until they lifted their heads into the sunny atmosphere, and all the world was more beautiful for their coming; hopes and plans were unfolding about his life like the leaves on the old oaks, slowly, sturdily, of beautiful growth, and steady persistence; the sunny atmosphere of love enwrapped him and brought into his life—restrained and chary of giving its best gifts, though steadfast, true, and deep—thoughts beautiful as the butterflies unfolding their wings, and sweet as the apple-blossoms flushing the[Pg 302] orchard behind the great house, which was no longer empty and lonely, but was filled with a visionary presence.

Now its sunshine was blotted out at a word. He shivered a little as they turned back. "Bring the mare around to the front!" he called as they passed the stable. "I think I will ride back with you!" he added to Mr. Holloway.

He left the professor to attend to some affairs in town, and when he got out to the University he found that Frances was lazily asleep. He sent to ask if she would take a ride, and waited with no show of impatience until she came running down the stair, habited and gloved.

"A ride!" she called. "How delightful! If I had had Starlight, I should not have been so lazy, but father was out with you. Has he any new suggestions?"

"Not one!" Montague smiled, and in the darkened room, Frances did not notice how white he was.

"We had better hurry!" she said, "or we will lose the sunset."

[Pg 303]

Montague opened the door as she spoke. The shadows of the maples stretched long across the quadrangle, and the corridor and houses across the way shim............