"

The person thus addressed had led a young horse to water at the spring
which bubbled out of a sugar-kettle hard by; and the horse, quivering,
had barely touched his nostrils to the water when he reared backward,
jerking the halter-rope taut. Then followed, with bewildering rapidity, a
series of manoeuvres on the part of the horse to get away, and on the
part of the person to prevent this, and inasmuch as the struggle took
place in the middle of the road, Victoria had to stop. By the time the
person had got the horse by the nose,--shutting off his wind,--the rain
was coming down in earnest.

"Drive right in," cried Mr. Jenney, hospitably; "you'll get wet. Look
out, Austen, there's a lady comin'. Why, it's Miss Flint!"

Victoria knew that her face must be on fire. She felt Austen Vane's quick
glance upon her, but she did not dare look to the right or left as she
drove into the barn. There seemed no excuse for any other course.

"How be you?" said Mr. Jenney; "kind of lucky you happened along here,
wahn't it? You'd have been soaked before you got to Harris's. How be you?
I ain't seen you since that highfalutin party up to Crewe's."

"It's very kind of you to let me come in, Mr. Jenney."

"But I have a rain-coat and a boot, and--I really ought to be going on."

Here Victoria produced the rain-coat from under the seat. The garment was
a dark blue, and Mr. Jenney felt of its gossamer weight with a
good-natured contempt.

"That wouldn't be any more good than so much cheesecloth," he declared,
nodding in the direction of the white sheet of the storm. "Would it,
Austen."

She turned her head slowly and met Austen's eyes. Fortunate that the barn
was darkened, that he might not see how deep the colour mantling in her
temples! His head was bare, and she had never really marked before the
superb setting of it on his shoulders, for he wore a gray flannel shirt
open at the neck, revealing a bronzed throat. His sinewy arms
--weather-burned, too--were bare above the elbows.

Explanations of her presence sprang to her lips, but she put them from
her as subterfuges unworthy of him. She would not attempt to deceive him
in the least. She had wished to see him again--nor did she analyze her
motives. Once more beside him, the feeling of confidence, of belief in
him, rose within her and swept all else away--burned in a swift consuming
flame the doubts of absence. He took her hand, but she withdrew it
quickly.

"This is a fortun