REFRESHMENTS had been served, the last ear of com husked and thrown into the bam, and they had all risen to depart, when Hillhouse hurried down the path from the cottage. He was panting audibly, and had evidently been walking fast. He shook hands perfunctorily with Pole and his wife, and then turned to Cynthia.

“I'm just from your house,” he said, “and I promised your mother to come over after you. I was afraid I'd be late. The distance round by the road is longer than I thought.”

“I'm afraid you are too late,” said Floyd, with a polite smile. “I was lucky enough to find the first red ear of corn, and the reward was that I might take home any one I asked. I assure you I'll see that Miss Cynthia is well taken care of.”

“Oh! I—I see.” The preacher seemed stunned by the disappointment. “I didn't know; I thought—”

“Yes, Floyd has won fast enough,” said Pole. “An' he's acted the part of the gentleman all through.” Pole explained what Floyd had done in excusing Miss Cynthia from the principal forfeit he had won.

But Hillhouse seemed unable to reply. The young people were moving towards the cottage, and he fell behind Floyd and his partner, walking along with the others and saying nothing.

It was a lonely, shaded road which Floyd and his companion traversed to reach her home.

“My luck turned just in the nick of time,” he said, exultantly. “I went there, Cynthia, especially to talk with you, and I was mad enough to fight when I saw how Pole had arranged everything. Then, by good-fortune and cheating, I found that red ear; and, well, here we are. You have no idea how pretty you look, with your hair—”

“Stop, don't begin that!” Cynthia suddenly commanded, and she turned her eyes upon him steadily.

“Stop? Why do you say that?”

“Because you talk that way to all the girls, and I don't want to hear it.”

Floyd laughed. “I declare you are a strange little creature. You simply won't let me be nice to you.”

“Well, I'm sure I don't like you when you speak that way,” the girl said, seriously. “It sounds insincere—it makes me doubt you more than anything else.”

“Then some things about me don't make you doubt me,” he said, with tentative eagerness.

She was silent for a moment, then she nodded her head. “I'll admit that some things I hear of you make me rather admire you, in a way.”

“Please tell me what they are,” he said, with a laugh.

“I've heard, for one thing, of your being very good and kind to poor people—people who Mr. Mayhew would have turned out of their homes for debt if you hadn't interfered.”

“Oh, that was only business, Cynthia,” Floyd laughed. “I simply can see farther than the old man can—that's all. He thought those customers never would be able to pay, but I knew they would some day, and, moreover, that they would come up with the back interest.”

“I don't believe it,” the girl said, firmly. “Those things make me rather like you, while the others make—they make me—doubt.”

“Doubt? Oh, you odd little woman!” They had reached a spring which flowed from a great bed of rocks in the side of a rugged hill. He pointed to a flat stone quite near it. “Do you remember, Cynthia, the first time I ever had a talk with you? It was while we were seated on this very rock.”

She recalled it, but only nodded her head.

“It was a year ago,” he pursued. “You had on a pink dress and wore your hair like a little girl in a plait down your back. Cynthia, you were the prettiest creature I had ever seen. I could hardly talk to you for wondering over your dazzling beauty. You are even more beautiful now; you have ripened; you are the most graceful woman I ever saw, and your mouth!—Cynthia, I'll swear you have the most maddening mouth God ever made out of flesh, blood and—soul!” He caught her hand impulsively and sat down on the stone, drawing her steadily towards him.

She hesitated, looking back towards Baker's cottage.

“Sit down, little girl,” he entreated, “I'm tired. I've worked hard all day at the store, and that corn-shucking wasn't the best thing to taper off on.” She hesitated an instant longer, and then allowed him to draw her down beside him. “There, now,” he said. “That is more like it.” He still held her hand; it lay warm, pulsating and helpless in his strong, feverish grasp.

“Do you know why I did not kiss you back there?” he asked, suddenly.

“I don't know why you didn't, but it was good of you,” she answered.

“No, it wasn't,” he laughed. “I won't take credit for what I don't deserve. I simply put it off, Cynthia—put it off. I knew we would be alone on our way home, and that you would not refuse me.”

“But I shall!” she said, with a start. “I'm not going to let you kiss me here in—in this way.”

“Then you'll not pay the forfeit you owe,” he said, fondling her hand. “I've always considered you fair in everything, and, Cynthia, you don't know how much I want to kiss you. No, you won't refuse me—you can't.” His left arm was behind her, and it encircled her waist. She made an effort to draw herself erect, but he drew her closer to him. Her head sank upon his shoulder and lay there while he pressed his lips to hers.

Then she sat up, and firmly pushed his arm down from her waist.

“I'm sorry I let you do it,” she said, under her breath.

“But why, darling?”

“Because I've said a thousand times that I would not, but I have—I have, and I shall hate myself always.”

“When you have made me the happiest fellow in the state?” Floyd said, passionately. “Don't go,” he urged, for she had risen and drawn her hand from his and turned towards her home. He rose and stood beside her, suiting his step to hers.

“Do you remember the night we sat and talked in the grape-arbor behind your house?” he asked. “Well, you never knew it, but I've been there three nights within the last month, hoping that I'd get to see you by some chance or other. I always work late on my accounts, and when I am through, and the weather is fine, I walk to your house, climb over the fence, slip through the orchard, and sit in that arbor, trying to imagine you are there with me. I often see a light in your room, and the last time I became so desperate that I actually whistled for you. This way—” He put his thumb and little finger between his lips and made an imitation of a whippoorwill's call. “You see, no one could tell that from the real thing. If you ever hear that sound again in the direction of the grape-arbor you'll know I need you, little girl, and you must not disappoint me.”

“I'd never respond to it,” Cynthia said, firmly. “The idea of such a thing!”

“But you know I can't go to your house often with your mother opposing my visits as she does, and when I'm there she never leaves us alone. No, I must have you to myself once in a while, little woman, and you must help me. Remember, if I call you, I'll want you badly.” He whistled again, and the echo came back on the still air from a nearby hill-side. They were passing a log-cabin which stood a few yards from the road-side.

“Budd Crow moved there to-day,” Cynthia said, as if desirous of changing the subject. “He rented twenty acres from my father. The 'White Caps' whipped him a week ago, for being lazy and not working for his family. His wife came over and told me all about it. She said it really had brought him to his senses, but that it had broken her heart. She cried while she was talking to me. Why does God afflict some women with men of that kind, and make others the wives of governors and presidents?”

“Ah, there you are beyond my philosophic depth, Cynthia. You mustn't bother your pretty head about those things. I sometimes rail against my fate for giving me the ambition of a king while I do not even know who—but I think you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I think I do,” said the girl, sympathetically, “and some day I believe all that will be cleared up. Some coarse natures wouldn't care a straw about it, but you do care, and it is the things we want and can't get that count.”

“It is strange,” he said, thoughtfully, “but of late I always think of my mother as having been young and beautiful. I think of her, too, as a well-bred, educated woman with well-to-do relatives. I think all those things without any proof even as to what her maiden name was or where she came from. Are you still unhappy at home, Cynthia?”

“Nearly all the time,” the girl sighed. “As she grows older my mother gets more fault-finding and suspicious than ever. Then she has set her mind on my marrying Mr. Hillhouse. They seem to be working together to that end, and it is very tiresome to me.”

“Well, I'm glad you don't love him,” Floyd said. “I don't think he could make any one of your nature happy.”

The girl stared into his eyes. They had reached the gate of the farm-house and he opened it for her. “Now, good-night,” he said, pressing her hand. “Remember, if you ever hear a lonely whippoorwill calling, that he is longing for companionship.”

She leaned over the gate, drawing it towards her till the iron latch clicked in its catch. With a shudder she recalled the hot kiss he had pressed upon her lips, and wondered what he might later think about it.

“I'll never meet you there at night,” she said, firmly. “My mother doesn't treat me right, but I shall not act that way when she is asleep. You may come to see me here now and then, but it will go no further than that.”

“Well, I shall sit alone in the arbor,” he returned with a low laugh, “and I hope your hard heart will keep you awake. I wouldn't treat a hound-dog that way, little girl.”

“Well, I shall treat a strong man that way,” she said, and she went into the house.

She opened the front-door, which was never locked, and went into her room on the right of the little hall. The night was very still, and down the road she heard Floyd's whippoorwill call growing fainter and fainter as he strode away. She found a match and lighted the lamp on her bureau and looked at her reflection in the little oval-shaped mirror. Remembering his embrace, she shuddered and wiped her lips with her hand.

“He'll despise me,” she muttered. “He'll think I am weak, like those other girls, but I am not. I am not. I'll show him that he can't, and yet”—her head sank to her hands, which were folded on the top of the bureau—“I couldn't help it. My God! I couldn't help it. I must have actually wanted him to—no, I didn't. I didn't; he held me. I had no idea his arm was behind me till he—”

There was a soft step in the hall. The door of her room creaked like the low scream of a cat. A gaunt figure in white stood on the threshold. It was Mrs. Porter in her night-dress, her feet bare, her iron-gray hair hanging loose upon her shoulders.

“I couldn't go to sleep, Cynthia,” she said, “till I knew you were safe at home.”

“Well, I'm here all right, mother, so go back to bed and don't catch your death of cold.”

The old woman moved across the room to Cynthia's bed and sat down on it. “I heard you coming down the road and went to the front window. I had sent Brother Hillhouse for you, but it was Nelson Floyd who brought you home. Didn't Brother Hillhouse get there before you left?”

“Yes, but I had already promised Mr. Floyd.” The old woman met her daughter's glance steadily. “I suppose all I'll do or say won't do a bit o' good. Cynthia, you know what I'm afraid of.”

The girl stood straight, her face set and firm, her great, dreamy eyes flashing.

“Yes, and that's the insult of it. Mother, you almost make me think you are judging my nature by your own, when you were at my age. I tell you you will drive me too far. A girl at a certain time of her life wants a mother's love and sympathy; she doesn't want threats, fears, and disgraceful suspicions.”

Mrs. Porter covered her face with her bony hands and groaned aloud.

“You are confessing,” she said, “that you are tied an' bound to him by the heart and that there isn't anything left for you but the crumbs he lets fall from his profligate table. You confess that you are lyin' at his feet, greedily lappin' up what he deigns to drop to you and the rest of those—”

“Stop!” Cynthia sprang to her mother and laid her small hand heavily on the thin shoulder. “Stop, you know you are telling a deliberate—” She paused, turned, and went slowly back to the bureau. “God forgive me! God help me remember my duty to her as my mother. She's old; she's out of her head.”

“There, you said something then!” The old woman had drawn herself erect and sat staring at her daughter, her hands on her sharp knees. “That reminds me of something else. You know my sister Martha got to worryin' when she was along about my age over her law-suit matters, and kept it up till her brain gave way. Folks always said she and I were alike. Dr. Strong has told me time after time to guard against worry or I'd go out and kill myself as she did. I haven't mentioned this before, but I do now. I can't keep down my fears and suspicions, while the very air is full of that man's conduct. He's a devil, I tell you—a devil in human shape. Your pretty face has caught his fancy, and your holding him off, so far, has made him determined to crush you like a plucked flower. Why don't he go to the Duncans and the Prices and lay his plans? Because those men shoot at the drop of a hat. He knows your pa is not of that stamp and that you haven't any men kin to defend our family honor. He hasn't any of his own; nobody knows who or what he is. My opinion is that he's a nobody and knows it, and out of pure spite is trying to pull everybody else down to his level.”

“Mother—” Cynthia's tone had softened. Her face was filling with sudden pity for the quivering creature on the bed. “Mother, will you not have faith in me? If I promise you honestly to take care of myself, and make him understand what and who I am, won't that satisfy you? Even men with bad reputations have a good side to their natures, and they often reach a point at which they reform. A man like that interests a woman. I don't dispute that, but there are strong women and weak women. Mother, I'm not a weak woman; as God is my judge, I'm able to take care of myself. It pains me to say this, for you ought to know it; you ought to feel it. You ought to see it in my eye and hear it in my voice. Now go to bed, and sleep. I'm really afraid you may lose your mind since you told me about Aunt Martha.”

The face of the old woman changed. It lighted up with sudden hope.

“Somehow, I believe what you say,” she said, with a faint smile. “Anyway, I'll try not to worry any more.” She rose and went to the door. “Yes, I'll try not to worry any more,” she repeated. “It may all come out right.”

When she found herself alone Cynthia turned and looked at her reflection in the glass.

“He didn't once tell me plainly that he loved me,” she said. “He has never used that word. He has never said that he meant or wanted to mar—” She broke off, staring into the depths of her own great, troubled eyes—“and yet I let him hold me in his arms and kiss me—me!” A hot flush filled her neck and face and spread to the roots of her hair. Then suddenly she blew out the light and crept to her bed.

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