m over
it, and a somnolent peace. It seemed impossible that iniquitous desires
could live and grow on a night like that. Ollie must be asleep, said he,
and repentant in her dreams.

Joe felt that he might go to his rest with honesty. It would be welcome,
as the desire of tired youth for its bed is strong. At the well he
stopped again to look back for Morgan.

As he turned a light flashed in the kitchen, gleamed a moment, went out
suddenly. It was as if a match had been struck to look for something
quickly found, and then blown out with a puff of breath.

At once the fabric of his hopes collapsed, and his honest attempts to
lift Ollie back to her smirched pedestal and invest her with at least a
part of her former purity of heart, came to a painful end. She was
preparing to leave. The hour when he must speak had come.

He approached the door noiselessly. It was closed, as he had left it,
and within everything was still. As he stood hesitating before it, his
hand lifted to lay upon the latch, his heart laboring in painful lunges
against his ribs, it opened without a sound, and Ollie stood before him
against the background of dark.

The moonlight came down on him through the half-bare arbor, and fell in
mottled patches around him where he stood, his hand still lifted, as if
to help her on her way. Ollie caught her breath in a frightened start,
and shrank back.

"You don't need to be afraid, Ollie--it's Joe," said he.

"Oh, you scared me so!" she panted.

Each then waited as if for the other to speak, and the silence seemed
long.

"Were you going out somewhere?" asked Joe.

"No; I forgot to put away a few things, and I came down," said she. "I
woke up out of my sleep thinking of them," she added.

"Well!" said he, wonderingly. "Can I help you any, Ollie?"

"No; it's only some milk and things," she told him. "You know how Isom
takes on if he finds anything undone. I was afraid he might come in
tonight and see them."

"Well!" said Joe again, in a queer, strained way.

He was standing in the door, blocking it with his body, clenching the
jamb with his hands on either side, as if to bar any attempt that she
might make to pass.

"Will you strike a light, Ollie? I want to have a talk with you," said
he gravely.

"Oh, Joe!" she protested, as if pleasantly scandalized by the request,
intentionally misreading it.

"Have you got another match in your hand? Light the lamp."

"Oh, what's the use?" said she. "I on