During the latter part of Jane's reflections Brent McElroy was having a few strange minutes. He had left Arden shortly before sundown and, by following two side roads, reached the rear gate of Tom Hewlet's farm without having to appear on the pike. This was no unusual route for him on evenings when the pike promised hazards such as a chance meeting with the Harts or Jane.

Whenever Nancy, on the lookout, saw a cloud of dust rising above these rambling, tree-lined lanes instead of from the white, direct way, a deep flush of mortification tinged her face. She understood his circumspection, but wisely refrained from showing it.

Tying his horse, he followed a path up to the gnarled orchard where he knew she would be waiting. And there he spied her, idly plaiting dry stems of last year's bluegrass, beneath the distorted old tree which he had named Nirvana. A glow of extreme pleasure warmed him, for this Rosalind with her rustic prettiness made an agreeable diversion from the somewhat monotonous evenings at Arden, and he vastly enjoyed angling about the edges of her rural pool. But he was unaware that she had never left its limpid depths. He did not suspect—because he did not think it possible—that, like a goldfish, she had only swum about in the limited sphere of her transparent bowl, looking out at the universe with large eyes which seemed, but were not, wise; and ready, if danger came, to scurry back into the little frosted castle that constituted the center of her constricted existence.

No kind words or deeds had reached that frosted little castle during the years she most required them. It had remained cold and uninviting, except as a place of shelter, and her soul had shrunk into a sort of knot—until Brent came. Only at his coming did her hungry nature begin to uncurl;—only at the coming of this polished gentleman from the great world, who knew everything, who was the epitome of kindness, who fed her with confidences and compliments, who inspired her with a sudden sense of meaningness, of importance—only since then had she begun to realize that for a long time her heart had craved affection.

He now remained another moment behind the trees to draw a half filled flask from his pocket. Had he not had more than enough to drink that day, he might have possessed the prudence to put this back untouched. Instead, he drained it; then carelessly sent it flying across the fence into an adjoining field rank with old weeds.

He came on after this, and Nancy sprang up, holding lightly to one of the low hanging boughs. Before they spoke, and to her wild dismay, he kissed her; and, as much to her dismay, she yielded, clinging to him in a strange, sweet agony. For if two hearts are hungry, if two natures have been strangled, there is a time when the touch of lips to lips lets loose a sweep of human passion before which the hosts of heaven and the laws of man draw back in awe.

But suddenly, with a piercing shriek, she sprang away; then, clutching his arm, whirled him about.

"Look!" she whispered, pointing a trembling finger to a pale, mysterious glow which seemed to be arising from the peaks of the distant Cumberlands.

"The moon is coming up," he said, unsteadily.

This was the first time either had spoken, either had moved; but now she commenced to sob in little gasps, backing farther from him as though he were something she dared not touch again—reaching blindly behind her for their old tree, whose strength in having resisted the fury of many storms might be imparted to her now.

"What's the matter?" he asked, still stupidly.

"Oh, Brent," she whispered, "I thought it was that blind girl lookin' down here an' tellin' me she'd rather see me dead! Go home, quick, for the love of Christ!"

He would not ask her to explain. Non-understandable as her words had been, they had given him time to look about and see upon what a perilous brink their feet were standing.

Brent was not a godly man; he had not cultivated Nancy with a grain of godly intention. But he was a manly man; and now as he suddenly realized, with that certainty which has no law, no rule, no answer, that she was good, he would not trust himself to speak. Shutting his teeth hard, he turned abruptly and almost ran toward the horse.

Then it was that she threw herself upon the grass and sobbed great sobs of thankfulness; and tried to laugh, and tried to pray; holding out her clasped hands to that halo of light above a humble cabin somewhere in the mountains, in whose door a blind face had seemed to look down at her entreating: "I'd ruther see ye die!"

It was in a perturbed but thoroughly sober mind that Brent dragged back the broken gate, whose openings and closings had worn a deep rut in the ground. He was about to untie his horse when the figure of a man appeared walking clumsily along the orchard fence.

"Wait there," the fellow called. "I want to see you!"

The heavy frame of Tom Hewlet came on, and no other word was spoken until he stopped three feet away. Swaying slightly, and looking into Brent's face with a simpering leer, in an undertone he said:

"Come over some evenin' next week."

"What for?"

"I might say it's 'cause you're so purty to look at," he guffawed at this bit of humor. "But, fact is, it's on fam'ly matters."

"You're coming apart, Tom. Go in and get some sleep!"

"I was sleepin', till a empty whiskey bottle come sailin' through the air an' hit me on my hand."

A cold shiver crawled up the engineer's spine, but he turned to unhitch the horse, saying casually:

"You'll have blue mice sailing through the air if you don't sober up."

"Don't be in a hurry," hiccoughed Tom. "Don't leave yoh would-be step-pappy without some kind of reminder. A fiver 'd go mighty fine jest now, an' you wouldn't never miss it!"

Brent had wheeled on him.

"You're getting in mighty dangerous ground, Tom," he warned sharply.

"'Tain't half as dangerous as that orchard back there, if you didn't come into it honest!—an' if you did come honest, there ain't no reason why I can't borry a fiver—bein' a fam'ly matter, as you might say!"

"I came honest, and I'm leaving honest, you drunken fool," Brent raved at him. "And don't try any blackmail dodges on me or I'll beat your head off!"

"Blackmail!" Tom stepped back, not so much in surprise at the word as at Brent's threatening attitude. "Well, I'll leave it to the Cunnel, an' Miss Jane, an' them folks over there, if this ain't a fair an' squar proposition—all in the fam'ly, as you might say;—bein' as you come honest! For if fine gentlemen like you don't come honest, they'll say Gawd pity the gal!"

They'll say: God pity the girl! It smote his soul like a whip. Why should they not say it anyhow of the half-read country girl whom he slipped around by back roads to meet at night? Heretofore, he had been more the adventurer than criminal, but now he felt the brand of both. Some day, after his work was finished and he had gone, Zack would tell of the messages and notes, and all the sacred oaths of all the creeds would not convince Arden and Flat Rock one little mite of her innocence!

Over in the orchard a girl, walking slowly to the house, had stopped, terrified; shrinking for him, not for herself, as with the unerring instinct of her sex she realized how his pride would cringe before such an exposure.

"Tom," he said at last, "you may have the fiver, but not because I'm afraid of anything you can say. Nancy hasn't a thing in God's world to be ashamed of, and neither have I. But it's plain that I can't come again as long as you're drunk and seeing things. Here," handing him a bill. "But it isn't a loan, or hush money, or anything of the sort;—just hope money."

"How hope money?" Tom grinned, crumpling it eagerly in his hand.

"Because I hope you'll drink yourself to death with it. Good night."

It was late that night, and not until she had made a hurried walk across the country to Arden, when Nancy stole into the house. Her ears told her that Tom was lost in slumber, and she crept to her room, fastening the door with the back of a chair wedged firmly beneath the knob. She was breathing fast—this time from physical exertion. Her skirt showed one or two rents where, in her haste, it had been forced through stiff underbrush, and the knuckles of her hands were stained with fresh earth, as though she might have crouched upon the ground somewhere to escape detection. Only upon her face was there no sign of violence. In it rested a light translatable as a great peace which comes to one who has forgiven nobly, at the sacrifice of toil, an erring friend.