JUDITH HART took her way straight for the wilderness. She passed along the margin of the black lake, made at once for the summer-house, and looked in, then turned away with an exclamation of disappointment.
"I thought he would 'a' been here, so sharp as he was for news," she muttered, tearing off a handful of rushes, and biting them with her teeth, until they rasped her lips. "There's no depending on him; but wait till we're wed. Then he'll have to walk a different road. Ha!"
The report of a gun on a rise of ground beyond the lake brought this exclamation from her, and she hastened on, muttering to herself, "It's his gun. I know the sound of it, and I thought he had forgotten."
Directly she came in sight of a figure walking through the thick undergrowth.
"Richard! Richard Storms!"
The man came toward her, moving cautiously, and holding up one hand.
"Hush! Can't you speak without screaming?" he said, hissing the words through his teeth. "It's broad daylight, remember, and by that, there's no passing you off for the other one, if a gamekeeper should cross us."
"Why not? I've just seen Ruth Jessup and myself in the glass at the same time, and we're like as two peas. Only for her finikin airs, I defy any one to say which was which."
"But she would never have called out so lustily."
"Oh, that was because I was o'erjoyed to see you, after finding the little lake-house empty!" answered the girl, laying her hand on his shoulder.