While Hayward was speaking it occurred to Helen that she willingly would have her father remain in ignorance of her disobedience and reckless riding and its consequent narrowly averted disaster. This consideration, together with Hayward's earnestness in his mystifying request, finally prevailed upon her.

"Very well, Hayward, if you insist. You only will be the loser. It is puzzling to me.... But tell me about your rescue of papa."

Hayward, glad to buy her silence, gave her a modest account of his very creditable bit of heroism, and in response to Helen's interested questioning he was still recounting incidents of the battle and his hospital experiences when they reached the Lake Drive and quickened their pace into a fast canter for home. They arrived and alighted and Hayward got the horses away to the stable without any one's seeing the dust-splashed mare.

Helen could hardly contain herself with her knowledge, but she was as scrupulously honest as she was impulsive, and stood by her promise not to divulge the footman's secret. She vainly tried to imagine some satisfactory explanation of his strange request, but could conceive none that seemed plausible. She finally came to believe that he was a heroic soul whom some implacable misfortune had denied the right to the fruits of his heroism, and in her heart she pitied him.

Hayward was not certain just how far his young mistress credited him with good and honest reasons for wishing his identity to remain undisclosed to her father. He feared that she must think any reason inadequate. He was very much afraid that in all her interested inquiries she would discover that he was not using his real name. If she became possessed of that knowledge she doubtless would think the circumstance sufficiently suspicious to warrant her laying all the facts before her father. This matter of his name perplexed him no little. He gladly would have Helen acquainted with the facts relating to the crimson pennant, and yet he must guard against it. That would reveal his masquerade, as she certainly would remember the name of the Harvard man who had saved his college from defeat. He heartily regretted the excess of caution which had made him place himself in this dilemma.

* * * * *

In the long and lazy summer days that came after that morning's ride Helen was given without seeking it some little opportunity to question the footman about the ever interesting matter of her father's rescue and allied incidents of battle and campaign. Her father insisted, on a few occasions when he could not accompany her, on her riding alone, with Hayward as a guard. In her sailing parties, also, in which Hayward was usually skipper of sailboat or launch, she was thrown occasionally with him alone before she had picked up, or after she had dropped off, her guests at the several landings around the Inlet.

She had a child's interest in listening to the ex-trooper's reminiscences of the battle of Valencia, the Venezuelan campaign, and of his world's-end following of the flag. The footman, never for a moment lacking in deference or presuming upon the liberty of speech allowed him, was an entertaining talker. He had used his eyes and his ears in his journeyings through the earth, and the lively imagination characteristic of his race and his negro knack of mimicry, together with his intelligence and his ability to use the English language with precision and skill, made him a raconteur of fascinating charm. Helen quite often wished to acquaint her father and mother and Elise with some of the things he recounted to her, but the tales were always so mixed in with his experiences as a soldier that she could not re-relate them without breaking her promise to respect his secret....

And thus the summer days dragged slowly to an end, with Helen and her footman becoming at odd times better acquainted with the thoughts and personal views each of the other on a wider and ever wider range of subjects. Helen was too unsophisticated in her thought to notice anything unusual in a lackey's being possessed of Hayward's intelligence and ease of manner. The ever present mystery of his refusal to exploit his heroic deeds dwarfed or overshadowed all other questions that might have arisen in her mind as to anything out of the ordinary in him. She did believe that he was suffering some sort of martyrdom in silence, and her womanly sympathy grew stronger as she knew more of him. Not for a moment was the relation of mistress and man lost sight of by either; but the revelation of the real woman and man, each to other, went steadily on.

CHAPTER XIII