Mary responded not at all. Rather, as Bennington arose, she fell,
until at last she hardly even moved in her place.

"Chirk up, chirk up!" cried Mrs. Lawton gaily, for her. "I know some
one who ought to be happy, anyhow." She glanced meaningly from one to
the other and laughed heartily.

Bennington felt a momentary disgust at her tactlessness, but covered it
with some laughing sally of his own. The meal broke up in great good
humour. Mrs. Lawton and Maude Eliza remained to clear away the dishes.
Mr. Lawton remarked that he must get back to work, and shook hands in
farewell most elaborately. Bennington laughingly promised them all that
he would surely come again. Then he escaped, and followed Mary up the
hill, surmising truly enough that she had gone on toward the Rock. He
thought he caught a glimpse of her through the elders. He hastened his
footsteps. At this he stumbled slightly. From his pocket fell a letter
he had received that morning. He picked it up and looked at it idly.

It was from his mother and covered a number of closely-written pages.
As he was about to thrust it back into his pocket a single sentence
caught his eye. It read: "Sally Ogletree gave a supper last week, which
was a very pretty affair."

He stopped short on the trail, and the world seemed to go black around
him. He almost fell. Then resumed his way, but step now was hesitating
and slow, and he walked with his eyes bent thoughtfully on the ground.

CHAPTER XVII

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

The thought which caused Bennington de Lane so suddenly look grave was
suggested by the sentence in his mother's letter. For the first time he
realized that these people, up to now so amusing, were possibly
destined to come into intimate relations with himself. Old Bill Lawton
was Mary's father; while Mrs. Lawton was Mary's mother; Maude was
Mary's sister.

The next instant a great rush of love into his heart drove this feeling
from it. What matter anything, provided she loved him and he loved her?
Generous sentiment so filled him that there was room for nothing else.
He even experienced dimly in the depths of his consciousness, a faint
pale joy that in thus accepting what was disagreeable to his finer
sensibilities, he was proving more truly to his own self the
boundlessness of his love. For the moment he was exalted by this
instant revulsion against anything calculating in his passion. And
then slowly, one by one, the objections stole back, like a floc