AT the end of the main street, as he rode homeward, Paul saw Ethel Mayfield coming toward him, her head down as if in deep thought. His first impulse was to turn aside, to avoid meeting her, but he saw that such a thing would be unpardonable. In spite of the weight that was on him, he felt the warm blood of embarrassment rushing to his face as the distance shortened between them.

There was a sweet, startled look of concern in her childish eyes as she raised them to him.

“Stop a minute,” she said; and as he awkwardly drew rein she continued: “I've just heard about your father. Two men were talking over there by a fence on the side of the road and I listened. Oh, it is awful, awful! I am so sorry for you, for they say you loved him so much, an' were always so good to him.”

A strange sense of confused helplessness surged over Paul. As she looked up at him so frankly he feared that she would read in his face the fact that she had been in his mind almost constantly since their meeting that day in the meadow. This disturbed him, and also the realization that common politeness demanded some sort of reply in accord with the refinement of her easy expression of sympathy. But that was beyond him. He felt his blood beating into his eyes. She appeared like a spirit thing poised upon an evanescent cloud; not for him save in fancy, not for any boy outside of dreams. In sheer desperation, and under the intuition that he ought not to sit on his horse while she stood, he dismounted.

“Thank you, thank you.” He seemed to hear the words as if they were spoken by other lips than his own, and again he had the exquisite sense of nearness to her, which had so enthralled him before. A wondrous, delectable force seemed to radiate from her and play upon his whole enraptured being.

“I have never seen any one die,” she went on, “and they say you were there alone with him. Oh, how very sad, and you—you are not much older than I am. Sad things are coming to you very early. I wish I could say something, or do something, Paul, but I don't really know how. I'm just a girl. My mother seems to know what to say at such times, but I don't. Grief like this simply overpowers me. I feel as if—as if I must cry, I'm so sorry for you.”

He saw her pretty lips quivering, her glorious eyes filling, and he dug the toe of his worn shoe into the sand of the road. He was becoming conscious of the tattered appearance of his working-clothes, his saddleless horse, his rough, perspiring hands and cuffless wrists. How odd that she, who was so daintily dressed, so wholly detached from his sordid life, could stand talking to him so kindly, so intimately!

“You are very good—very!” he stammered. “Better than anybody else. If they were all like you it wouldn't seem so—so bad.”

“It may seem forward of me and bold,” Ethel returned, “for really we have only been together once before, and yet (I don't know how you feel)—but I feel, somehow, Paul, as if we were very old friends. I admire you because you are brave and strong. You are not like—like the boys in Atlanta. You are different (uncle says you are not afraid of anything on earth). You know a girl could not keep from wanting that sort of a friend. I don't mean that I'd want to see you hurt ever—ever; but it is nice for a girl to feel that she has a friend who would take any risk for her. My mother says I get a lot of notions that are not good for me out of novels. Well, I don't know how that is, but I like you, and I am very, very sad about your father. If I had not met you here I would have written you a note. Can you tell me when—when he is to be buried?”

He told her that the funeral would be at the village church the next day, and therewith his voice broke, and for the first time his heart heaved and his eyes filled.

“I wanted to know because I am going to send some flowers,” she said; and then, observing the signs of his emotion and his averted face, she suddenly and impulsively caught his hand and pressed it between both of her own. “Don't, don't cry!” she pleaded. “I couldn't stand to see it!” Her own lashes were wet and her sweet mouth was drawn tight. “Oh, I wish there was something I could do or say, but I can't think of a thing. Yes, there is one thing, and it must help, because the Bible and the wisest men say it will at such times. I have been praying for you, and I am going to keep on doing it. Paul, from what you said the other day, I suppose you—have never been converted?”

He shook his head, swallowed, but kept his face turned away, conscious that it was distorted by contending emotions.

“I have been,” she said, still pressing his hand, “and, O Paul, it was glorious! It happened at a camp-meeting where mother took me and my cousin, Jennie Buford, in the country below Atlanta, last summer. It was all so wonderful—the singing, shouting, and praying. I was so happy that I felt like flying. Since then I have felt so good and secure and contented. The Bible is full of meaning to me now. I love to read it when I am alone in my room. It is beautiful when you begin to understand it, and know that it is actually the Word of our Creator. I am sure I shall lead a Christian life, as my mother is doing. It has made Jennie happy, too. We are like two twins, you know. We have been together nearly every day since we were babies. There is only a fence between our houses in Atlanta, and she sleeps with me or I with her every night. She was sick last winter, and they thought she was going to die. She thought so, too; she told me so, but would not tell her mother because she would be so broken-hearted. I prayed for Jennie all that night—all night. I hardly stopped a minute.”

“And she didn't die?” Paul looked at her with a glance of mild incredulity in his eyes.

“No; the doctor said she was better and she got well. It would have killed me if she had been taken, I love her so much. We are so much alike that I often read her thoughts and she reads mine. Many and many a time we have told each other exactly what we were thinking about.”

“Thought transference,” he said. “I've read about that. It may be true.”

Ethel now released his hand and flushed slightly. “Excuse me,” she faltered, her lashes touching her cheeks. “I hardly knew what I was doing.”

It was his turn to color now, and they stood awkwardly facing each other. She, however, recovered herself quickly.

“I am going to pray for you more and more now,” she went on, soothingly. “It will surely help you. I know that God answers prayers when they are made in the right spirit. He must help you bear this sorrow, and He will—He will.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Paul muttered, his wavering eyes on the road leading between zigzag rail fences on to his home. “I must be going now. I've got a good many things to attend to.”

“Of course, I know—I know,” Ethel responded, gravely.

A wagon was approaching from the direction of the village. It was drawn by two sturdy mules, which thrust their hoofs into the dust of the road so deeply that a constant cloud of the fine particles hovered over the vehicle. A negro man wearing a tattered straw hat, soiled shirt and trousers, and without shoes, was driving. Ethel caught Paul's hand impulsively, and drew him and his horse to the side of the road.

“Wait till they pass,” she said. “Oh, what nasty dust!”

She saw him staring at the wagon, a rigid look on his face. “It's the coffin,” he explained. “It is going out home.”

The wagon rumbled on. There was an unpainted wooden box behind the negro's seat, and on it rested a plain walnut coffin, thickly coated with dust. The sun had warmed the new varnish, and there was an odor of it in the air.

“Oh, it is so sad!” Paul caught the words from the averted lips of his companion. “I wish I could do something, or say something, but I can't.”

Again his despair fell upon him. As he mounted his horse it seemed to him that he was a moving thing that was dead in all its parts. He couldn't remember that he had ever tipped his hat to any one in his life, and yet he did so now gracefully enough. He felt that he ought to reply to the words she had so feelingly uttered, but the muscles of his throat had tightened. A great sob was welling up within him and threatening to burst. He started his horse, and with his back to her, his head bent toward the animal's neck, he slowly rode away.

“Poor boy!” Ethel said, as the mules, the wagon, the coffin, and Paul floated and vanished in the mist before her eyes. She turned and moved on toward the village, her head lowered, softly crying and earnestly praying.