Was he still in the neighborhood and waiting for the noon train?  If so, could he be confronted on the cars and accused of his crime?  He looked at his watch; it was nearly eleven, and he must push on to the hotel before that hour, report to the colonel, then hasten back to the station.  He sprang to his feet, and was just about to mount, when a vision of white and scarlet came suddenly into view.  There, within twenty feet of him, making her dainty way through the shrubbery from the direction of the church, sunshine and shadow alternately flitting across her lovely face and form, Alice Renwick stepped forth into the pathway, and, shading her eyes with her hand, gazed along the leafy lane towards the road, as though expectant of another’s coming.  Then, attracted by the beauty of the golden-rod, she bent and busied herself with gathering in the yellow sprays.  Armitage, with one foot in the stirrup, stood stock-still, half in surprise, half stunned by a sudden and painful thought.  Could it be that she was there in hopes of meeting—­any one?

He retook his foot from the stirrup, and, relaxing the rein, still stood gazing at her over his horse’s back.  That placid quadruped, whose years had been spent in these pleasant by-ways and were too many to warrant an exhibition of coltish surprise, promptly lowered his head and resumed his occupation of grass-nibbling, making a little crunching noise which Miss Renwick might have heard, but apparently did not.  She was singing very softly to herself,—­

  “Daisy, tell my fortune, pray: 
  He loves me not,—­he loves me.”

And still Armitage stood and gazed, while she, absorbed in her pleasant task, still pulled and plucked at the golden-rod.  In all his life no “vision of fair women” had been to him fair and sacred and exquisite as this.  Down to the tip of her arched and slender foot, peeping from beneath the broidered hem of her snowy skirt, she stood the lady born and bred, and his eyes looked on and worshipped her,—­worshipped, yet questioned, Why came she here?  Absorbed, he released his hold on the rein, and Dobbin, nothing loath, reached with his long, lean neck for further herbage, and stepped in among the trees.  Still stood his negligent master, fascinated in his study of the lovely, graceful girl.  Again she raised her head and looked northward along the winding, shaded wood-path.  A few yards away were other great clusters of the wild flowers she loved, more sun-kissed golden-rod, and, with a little murmur of delight, gathering her dainty skirts in one hand, she flitted up the pathway like an unconscious humming-bird garnering the sweets from every blossom.  A little farther on the pathway bent among the trees, and she would be hidden from his sight; but still he stood and studied her every movement, drank in the soft, cooing melody of her voice as she sang, and then there came a sweet, solemn strain from the brown, sunlit walls just visible through the trees, and reverent voices and the resonant chords of the organ thrilled through the listening woods the glorious anthem of the church militant.