I soon forgot that I had met Richard, that I had been angry; and again I had but this one thought.

The pine cones were slippery under my feet.  I held by the old trees as I went down the bank, step by step.  I had to turn and pass a clump of trees before I reached the boat-house door.

I was there!  With a beating heart I stepped up on the threshold.  There were two doors, one that opened on the path, one that opened on the river.  The house was empty.  I had a little sinking pang of disappointment, but I passed on to the door looking out on the river.  By this door was a seat, empty, but on this lay a book and a straw hat.  I could feel the hot blushes cover my face, my neck, as I caught sight of these.  I stooped down, feeling guilty, and took up the book.  It was a book which he had read daily to me in our lesson-hours.  It had his name on the blank page, and was full of his pencil-marks.  I meant to ask him to give me this book; I would rather have it than anything the world held, when I should be parted from him. When! I sat down on the seat beside the door, with the book lying in my lap, the straw hat on the bench.  I longed to take it in my hands—­to wreathe it with the clematis that grew about the door, as I had done one foolish, happy afternoon, not three weeks ago.  But with a strange inconsistency, I dared not touch it; my face grew hot with blushes as I thought of it.

How should I meet him?  Now that the moment I had longed for had arrived, I wondered that I had dared to long for it.  I felt that if I heard his step, I should fly and hide myself from him.  The recollection of that last interview in the library—­which I had lived over and over, nights and days, incessantly, since then, came back with fresh force, fresh vehemence.  But no step approached me, all was silent; it began to impress me strangely, and I looked about me.  I don’t know at what moment it was, my eye fell upon the trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on the mark of the boat dragged along the sand; a little below the boat-house it had been pushed off into the water.

I started to my feet, and ran down to the water’s edge (at the boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any distance).

I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet; it was hardly a sound.  I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored river:  there, about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was lying:  empty —­motionless.  The oars were floating a few rods from her, drifting slowly, slowly, down the stream.

The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice:  even before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was benumbed.  But it did not take many moments for the truth, or a dread of it, to reach my brain.

I covered my eyes with my hands, then sprang up the bank and called wildly.

My voice was like a madwoman’s, and it must have sounded far on that still air.  In less than a moment Richard came hurrying with great strides down the path.  I sprang to him, and caught his arm and dragged him to the water’s edge.