Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE TARGET f"PHE set at tennis having finished with victory perching on my banners, I made excuse to put off the inspection of the collie puppies until another time, resumed my walking boots and, with a parting if futile admonition to Cameron to "think no more about it," started on my homeward way. My route lay again through the miniature forest, for the day had waxed uncomfortably warm with the approach of noon, and there was scant shade on the high-road between our two houses. In the wood, however, the air was gratefully cool, and I strode on at a good pace, breathing deeply and with enjoyment the bosky odors which greeted me afresh at every step. The dead silence which I had remarked earlier was broken now by the hoarse tooting of a steamboat whistle, somewhere off shore, and by the shrill voices of birds, apparently in resentful protest at this raucous invasion of their sylvan quiet. I had succeeded in putting aside, for the moment at least, all thought of Cameron, his anonymous letters,and his mutilated portrait, and was dwelling on my disappointment at not having caught even so much as a glimpse of Evelyn Grayson during my morning visit to Cragholt. It is true that I had gone there with a single purpose in mind — to convey to Cameron what I believed to be an important theory — but underlying this, I realized now, was more than a hope, a confidence even, that I should see Evelyn. I was tempted, indeed, to a regret that I had not waited, visited the kennels, and accepted Cameron's invitation for luncheon, which would doubtless have insured me a few words at least with my Goddess of Youth. While on the verge of this self-reproach my spirits suddenly lifted, for the steam whistle having died away in the distance and the feathered choristers having r...