, while the wild
fever leaped and seethed in his veins. He called up before his inner
vision the light, dainty figure, the level, grey eyes, fearless, yet in
a fashion shy, the glow of the sun-tanned skin, the soft, thick hair,
brown in the shadow, gold in the sun.

Straight before him, low in the sky, hung the morning star. It almost
looked as if it were drifting earthwards with all its purity, all its
glistening sweetness, drifting straight to the heart of the world. He
fixed his eyes upon it, drawn by its beauty almost in spite of himself.
It was the only star in the sky, and it almost seemed as if it had a
message for him.

But the day was dawning, the star fading, and the message hard to read.
Why had she refused to marry Chesyl? he asked himself. The man was
lukewarm in speech and action; but that surely was but the way of the
world to which he belonged. No excess of emotion was ever encouraged
there. Doubtless behind that amiable mask there beat the same devouring
longing that throbbed in his own racing pulses. Surely Doris knew this!
Surely she understood her own kind!

He recalled those words of hers that he had overheard, the slow
utterance of them as of some pronouncement of doom. "If I can't have
corn, I won't have husks. I will die of starvation sooner."

He had caught the pain in those words. Had Hugh Chesyl failed to do so?
If so, Hugh Chesyl was a fool. He had never thought very highly of him,
though he supposed him to be clever after his own indolent fashion.

Chesyl was the old squire's nephew and heir--a highly suitable _parti_
for any girl. Yet Doris had refused him, not wholly without ignominy. A
gentleman, too! Jeff's mouth twisted. The thought came to him, and
ripened to steady conviction, that had Chesyl taken the trouble to woo,
he must in time have won. The girl was miserable enough to admit the
fact of her misery, and he offered her marriage with him as a friendly
means of escape. On other ground he could have won her. On this ground
he was probably the least likely man to win. She asked for corn, and he
offered husks. What wonder that she preferred starvation!

His hands were still clenched as he turned from the window. Oh, to have
been in Hugh Chesyl's place! She would have had no complaint then to
make as to the quality of his offering. He would never have suffered her
to go hungry. And yet the feeling that Hugh Chesyl loved her lingered
still in his soul. Ah, what a fool! What a fool