e kept you all afternoon!" she exclaimed, getting suddenly to her
feet.

"I wanted to be kept," Hugh admitted slowly, rising also. "It's
frightfully hot in the middle of the afternoon. I'll work late, and milk
after dark."

"I'll bring up the cows and do the milking," she volunteered.

"Let me see you!" he protested, and went to his work again.

Hugh Noland had never even guessed that he would walk deliberately over
and spend a whole afternoon with a woman he had no right to love after
becoming aware that he was already in love with her. For the first time he
stood in the limelight of strong emotions and knew himself for what he
was, not only that he was a mere man, but that he was a man who was not
showing the proper control over feelings and emotions which thousands of
men and women alike controlled every day. He worked his problem over as he
worked the mellow soil about the corn roots and made himself late, but
with contradictory impulses hurried the milking when he did get at it so
as to get down to the book again.

Elizabeth had taken time to think out her side of their position, and told
herself that she hoped that Hugh would not offer to read to-night, but as
the time approached she trimmed the lamp and arranged the books on the
sitting-room table with a slight sense of worry for fear he would not
come, and conscious that the evening was going fast. It was late when they
began, and correspondingly late when they finished the reading that
night.

The next night Hugh sat on the upturned manure cart talking to the men
till he saw Elizabeth put out the light in the sitting room, and then, in
spite of the fact that he had been strong enough to stay away, was sorry
that he had not had one more night's reading with her before John came
home. John was coming in the morning, and Hugh was to meet him, and Hugh
Noland did not like himself, nor the position he would be in when he
thought of greeting John Hunter as a friend.

The better to think things out and decide what he would do, Hugh sat down
on the doorstep and did not go in. The night was perfect. There was a full
moon and the soft breeze was a delicious reminder of the coolness of the
leafy bower among the willows where he had spent the afternoon with
Elizabeth. There was to be no more of Elizabeth for him, God bless her!
Elizabeth was a wife and honour demanded that not even a glance of
affection pass between them. This Hugh Noland believed, and yet when they