He was near enough to
distinguish and recognize the dress she wore, a pale yellow, that he
had admired when he first saw her. It was Nellie, unmistakably; if it
were she of the brown duster, she had discarded it, perhaps for greater
freedom. He was near enough to call out now, but a sudden nervous
timidity overcame him; his lips grew dry. What should he say to her?
How account for his presence? "Miss Nellie, one moment!" he gasped. She
darted forward and--vanished.
At this moment he was not more than a dozen yards from her. He rushed
to where she had been standing, but her disappearance was perfect and
complete. He made a circuit of the group of trees within whose radius
she had last appeared, but there was neither trace of her, nor
suggestion of her mode of escape. He called aloud to her; the vacant
Woods let his helpless voice die in their unresponsive depths. He gazed
into the air and down at the bark-strewn carpet at his feet. Like most
of his vocation, he was sparing of speech, and epigrammatic after his
fashion. Comprehending in one swift but despairing flash of
intelligence the existence of some fateful power beyond his own weak
endeavor, he accepted its logical result with characteristic grimness,
threw his hat upon the ground, put his hands in his pockets, and said--
"Well, I'm d----d!"
CHAPTER III.
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