She opened one eye, stole a glance at her clock, and then she was wide awake. She found the little nymph-green knitted dress that fit an early trip to the woods and the soft brown suede tramping shoes, gave a hasty rumpling to the big gold waves of her hair, and was ready.

She thought she heard footsteps coming down the pavement in the stillness of the morning as she crept into the hall and down the stairs, softly not to wake that dreadful brother of hers, and when she opened the front door ever so silently, there was the stranger lingering down by the group of hemlocks beyond the daffodils. He gave her his brilliant smile and a quiet lifting of his hat for welcome and seemed to know they would go quietly and not disturb the sleeping town as they walked through it.

Out beyond sight of her father’s house, Constance drew a breath of relief. Her brother hadn’t wakened. It wouldn’t matter whether anyone else saw her, although it suddenly occurred to her that it was rather odd to be walking off with a stranger at this early hour in the morning.

“This is simply great of you,” said Seagrave, looking down upon her, his eyes full of light. “I’ve been wondering all night if you would come.”

“Why, so have I,” gurgled Constance with a breath of a laugh. “Or no, not wondering,” she corrected herself. “I was very sure I wouldn’t, of course.” She laughed. “You see I really haven’t time. I’m leaving in about three hours.”

“I know,” he said gravely. “I’m sorry.”

“I just couldn’t resist the desire to see where those darling flowers live when they are at home,” she said quickly to hide the commotion she felt in her mind at the serious way he took her going. This really was all wrong, she told herself, but it was fun, and of course it would soon be over.

All too soon they arrived at Hepatica Hill and dropped down to worship the beauty. It seemed to Constance that she had never been in such a beautiful spot before, and she drank her fill of the day and the hour, the sky and the wonderful flowers.

Then they grew silent sitting on the hillside with the blue flowers at their feet and the fringe of fern beside them. Looking off over the valley, the town in the distance, taking deep breaths of fine air, thrilling with the song of a bird in the top of a tall tree, they were filled with the awe of the morning.

Suddenly he turned to her with that grave, sweet smile she had seen first on his face at the church.

“How long have you been saved?” he asked, as simply as if he had asked how long before her college would be over.

Constance looked up in a great wonder and stared at him.

“Saved?” she echoed, and again, “Saved? I … don’t know just what you mean. Saved from what?”

He gave her a startled look, and then a great gentleness came upon his face. As if she had been a little child he explained, simply, “Sunday we united with the church,” he said slowly.

“Yes?” she said with a sharp, startled catch in her voice and giving him a keen look. Had he seen through her playacting? Did he know how loath she had been to parade before the world in that way?

“You united on profession of your faith, not by letter from another church as I did. I was wondering—perhaps I have no right to ask on such a short acquaintance—but I was interested to know if you had been a Christian a long time or had just come to know the Lord?”

He waited in a sweet silence for her answer, and Constance looked up and then down in confusion.

“I … oh, I … why—!” and then she stopped with a half-embarrassed laugh. “I’m not very familiar with those phrases you have used,” she said and tried to give a glibness to her speech. “They don’t talk much of such things in the college I attend. But I suppose you must mean something like what they used to call in old-fashioned camp meetings ‘being converted’? Well, I’m afraid then I’ll be quite a disappointment. I haven’t really ever given much thought to these things. You see it was rather sprung upon me, this thing of uniting with the church—” She glanced up with a lift of her dark lashes that gave such a piquancy to her lovely face, and the look she saw in his eyes made her hurry on anxiously, speaking rapidly, trying to get the old-time snap into her words and somehow not making it.

She hurried on, determined to make a clean sweep of it and end this nonsense. After all, the truth was best. She hated to pose as something she was not. That was why she had not wanted to join the church. It seemed to her hypocritical.

“You see my grandmother was determined I should join. The rest of the girls in the Sunday school class to which I used to belong were joining, and she simply had her heart set on my joining, too.”

The young man was so still that she felt uncomfortable. She was afraid to look up and see the look in his eyes. She somehow felt a disapproval, and she did not like it.