knelt beside her and put his arms around her,
but she repulsed him; so he sat on the rug and looked at her.

"No wonder you felt sure you knew what that was!" she cried bitterly.

"Ruth, if you will allow me to lift the bottom of that old trunk, and if
you will read any one of the half dozen letters I read, you will forgive
me, and begin making preparations to go."

"It's a wonder you don't hold them before me and force me to read them,"
she said.

"Don't say anything you will be sorry for after you are gone, dear."

"I'm not going!"

"Oh yes you are!"

"Why?"

"Because it is right that you should, and right is inexorable. Also,
because I very much wish you to; you will do it for me."

"Why do you want me to go?"

"I have three strong reasons: First, as I told you, it is the only thing
that will cleanse your heart of bitterness and leave it free for the
tenanting of a great and holy love. Next, I think they honestly made
every effort to find your mother, and are now growing old in despair you
can lighten, and you owe it to them and yourself to do it. Lastly, for
my sake. I've tried everything I know, Ruth, and I can't make you love
me, or bring you to a realizing sense of it if you do. So before I saw
that chest I had planned to harvest my big crop, and try with all my
heart while I did it, and if love hadn't come then, I meant to get
some one to stay with you, and I was going away to give you a free
perspective for a time. I meant to plead that I needed a few weeks with
a famous chemist I know to prepare me better for my work. My real motive
was to leave you, and let you see if absence could do anything for me in
your heart. You've been very nearly the creature of my hands for months,
my girl; whatever any one else may do, you're bound to miss me mightily,
and I figured that with me away, perhaps you could solve the problem
alone I seem to fail in helping you with. This is only a slight change
of plans. You are going in my stead. I will harvest the ginseng and
cure it, and then, if you are not at home, and the loneliness grows
unbearable, I will take the chemistry course, until you decide when you
will come, if ever."

"'If ever?'"

"Yes," said the Harvester. "I am growing accustomed to facing big
propositions----I will not dodge this. The faces of the three of your
people I have seen prove refinement. Their clothing indicates wealth.
These long, lonely years mean that they will shower you with every
o