Part 21 (1/2)

The lunches had been eaten, and the boys and girls strolled about the grove. Madge had not been near her chums all day, and they felt it keenly, though from a distance she had gaily waved her hand to them. The boys had rather lost interest in the ident.i.ty of her companion.

”Oh, Phil,” called Helen to her escort as she saw a pretty flower growing on a woodland bank. ”Get that for me, please. Look out for thorns, though.”

”A-la-Miss Benson?” asked Phil, referring to Tom's escapade with the pretty girl.

”Yes,” a.s.sented Helen with a laugh and a blush. And then, as she looked at a stone at her feet she screamed.

”What is it?” cried Phil, scrambling down the bank with such haste that he slipped, and rolled nearly half the distance. ”Did you sprain your ankle?”

”No, but it's a horrid snake!”

She pointed to a little one, not bigger than an angle worm.

”Pooh!” sneered Phil. ”It's lost its mamma, that's all. You shouldn't scare the poor thing so by screaming.”

”Ugh! The horrid thing!” said Helen with a shudder, as Phil tossed the snake gently into the bushes. ”I can't bear anything that crawls.”

Then Phil, brus.h.i.+ng the dirt from his new trousers, made another and successful attempt to get the flower. And so the day went on.

Back in his room Tom straightened up, and looked from the window. The afternoon was waning, and already long shadows athwart the campus told of the setting sun.

”Well!” he said aloud. ”I might as well go out and walk about. They'll be back pretty soon, and then----” he shrugged his shoulders. ”What's the use?” he asked himself, apropos of nothing in particular.

Some whim prompted him to board a car going in the direction of Fairview. The May walk he knew would be over by this time, save perhaps for a few stragglers. And he hoped--yet what did he hope?

Tom found himself walking through the little grove where the boys and girls of the college had eaten lunch a few hours before. The place seemed deserted now, though now and then a distant laugh told of some late-staying couple. The sun was almost down, sending golden-red shafts of light slanting through the newly-leafing trees.

Tom turned down a deserted path of beach trees. He walked on, not heeding his course until, as he neared a cross-trail, he heard voices.

There was the soft tones of a girl, and the deeper rumble of a youth.

Tom stepped back behind a sheltering trunk, and only just in time, for the couple suddenly stepped into view.

”Hasn't it been a perfect day?” asked the youth.

”Yes--almost,” was his companion's rather indifferent answer.

”Why not altogether, Miss Tyler?”

Tom started at this. He peered from behind the big beach.

”Oh, nothing is perfect in this world,” was the laughing answer.

The sun, suddenly dipping down, struck clearly on the faces of the couple. Tom saw them, and his lips formed a name.

”Shambler! That's whom she meant when she said she could not go with me.

Shambler!”

The couple pa.s.sed on, and Tom stood there looking at them, his hands clenched so that the nails deeply indented his palms.