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As Frost waited below he nervously moved about; there was a sort of sub-conscious discomfort, as of one whose clothes are a misfit. The least sound added to his uneasy feeling.

“Am I actually in love with her?” he asked, “or does her maidenly and becoming coyness excite my surfeited passion? Is it something that will burn off at a touch, like a lighted sedge-field,” he reflected. “Would I marry her if I could? Well, what’s the difference? The part I have undertaken is a good one; I will see it through and risk the winning.”

When Cherokee appeared he thought her lovelier than ever. He looked hungrily at her fair, high-bred face, her enigmatical smile that might mean so much or so little. She gave him her hand in kindly welcome.

“You will pardon my stupidity to-day, for I shouldn’t have come feeling so badly, and I should not have come at all had I not wanted a kind word of sympathy,” he said, when the first salutations were received.

“You did quite right,” she answered, “burdens shared are easier carried. What is your trouble?”