Ray had recognized Lena, but Kate refused to discuss her.
"Life has hurt her," she said, "and she's in hiding like a wounded animal. I couldn't talk about her. I--I love her. It's like that with me. Once I've loved a person, I can't get it out of my system."
She was staring from the window, trying to get back her happiness. Ray snatched her hand and held it in a crushing grip.
"For God's sake, Kate, try to love me, then!" he whispered.
It was spring all about them,--"the pretty ring-time,"--and she had just seen what it was to be a defeated and unloved woman. She felt a thrill go through her, and she turned an indiscreetly bright face upon her companion.
"Don't expect too much," she whispered back, "but I will try."
They went on, almost with the feeling that they were in Arcadia, and drew up at a platform in the midst of woods, through which they could see a crooked trail winding.
"Here's our place!" cried Ray. "Don't you recognize it? Not that you've ever seen it before."
They dashed, laughing, from the train, and found themselves a minute later in a bird-haunted solitude, among flowers, at the beginning of the woodland walk. There seemed to be no need to comment upon the beauty of things. It was quite enough that the bland, caressing air beat upon their cheeks in playful gusts, that the robins gave no heed to them, and that "the little gray leaves were kind" to them.
Never was there a more capricious trail than the one they set themselves to follow. It skirted the edge of a little morass where the young flags were coming up; it followed the windings of a brook where the wild forget-me-not threw up its little azure buds; it crossed the stream a dozen times by means of shaking bridges, or fallen trees; it had magnificent gateways between twin oaks--gateways to yet pleasanter reaches of leaving woodland.