The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-04-21

| the street.
 This all puzzled her; puzzled her very l much. She knew that Judy had writ ! ten to him of their coming to London,
 she had seen his reply to her letter; l and Judy with her usual thoughtful | kindness had mentioned-as though by l chance, for she was the very soul of ! kindly discretion-that when she knew | what locality and hotel had been fixed | on for the visit to the Lakes she would | tell him. It was evident. that he knew
 they were there and in the hotel; why, | then, did he not come to see them. | How she would have hurried. she 1 thought, had she been the man and | loved as she did, She had no doubting
 whatever of his good faith. Perfect | love casteth out fear" And doubt is but fear in a tilnid form. She accepted i in simple good faith that he had some 1 purpose or reason of his own. Her | manifest duty to him, therefore, was
 not to let any wish or act of hers clash
 with it. She set herself to think it all out feeling in reality far happier than l she had done for many weeks. It was not merely that she had, after long waiting. seen the man: but she was now able to do something for hinn-if
 indeed 1t was only the curbing of her own curiosity. her own desires.
 She rose quietly and went to her bed room which was at another side of the hoUse-on the side towards which He had passed. Her father was writing letters and would not want her; he had said at breakfast that he would not be able to go out for an hour two. In her room she went cautiously to her
 window and. again hiding behind the
 curtain, glanced into the street. She felt quite sad when she only saw his
 back as he walked slowly away. Every
 now and again he would stop and look
 round him as though admiring the
 place and the views as the openings
 between the houses allowed him to see
 the surrounding country. Once or twice she could see him look out under his
 eyebrows as though watching the hotel
 without appearing to do so. Presently he turned the corner of the next street
 to the left. moving as though he wish
 ed to go all around the hotel.
 She sat down and thought, her heart
 beating hard. Her face was covered
 with both her hands Forehead as cheeks and neck were deeply flushed; and when she took away her hands her She seemed filled with happiness. but all the same looked impossibly demure; as is woman's nature. playing to con- vention even when alone.
 Before she left the room she had changed her clothes putting on after several experiments the frock which she thought the most becoming. She did not send for her maid but did everything for herself: even to hang ing up the discarded frocks. Then she .went back to the sitting room and took as before her seat at the window, keeping however @ little more in the DdCkSrOunQ. Sne wanted to see rather than to be seen. With her eyes seem ingly on her book, but in reality sweep ing under her laSheS the approaches to the hotel like searchlights. she sat quite quietly for some time. At length the eyes suddenly fell for an instant under an uncomfortable wave of diff fdence: she had seen Him pass into the garden opposite to the hotel and go Secretively behind some lilac bushes opposite the doorway. But after that l one droop of the eyes. there was | scarcely even the flicker of eyelid; | she did not want to lose a single | glimpse of him.
 Sitting by the window. where he 1 could see her. for a full hour until her father appeared. she thought over the | new phase of the matter. If she had ever had any real doubt as to whether l MT. Richard Hardy loved her it was all resolved now. For certain he loved 1 her-and as much. she hoped, as she l loved him. He had sought her out at l for even in her own secret ! mind she never went through the pre- | tence of trying to persuade herself | that he was looking for. ~ |
 But why was he so secret? Why did | he not come at once into the hotel and | ask to see her father. He had been 1 invited to come; he had been made a | guest at the Holland. He | knew their movements: he had written l to Judy. But why did he keep so aloof? If he wanted to avoid them all together he had only to keep away.
 (To be Continued.)