man before her.

"Haven't you always thought of them only as they ministered to your
comfort, like the other farm animals? Is it really anything to you
that this narrow-minded girl has conceived a very silly, but none the
less unhappy, sentiment for you?"

"I--" began Flint, but the flood would have its way.

"Oh, yes, it annoys you, I dare say. You feel your dignity a little
touched by it; but does it move your pity, your chivalry? If it
does--Oh, go away!"

Flint would have given much to feel a fever heat of anger, to flame
out against the audacity of the girl with an indignation overtopping
her own; but he only felt himself growing more cold and rigid. He told
himself that she had misunderstood him hopelessly, utterly. There was
a certain aggrieved satisfaction in the thought. He had risen, and
stood leaning against a tree. Winifred wondered at her own courage, as
she saw him standing there stiff and haughty.

"I shall go, of course," he said at length. "My absence seems to be
the only sure method of producing universal content. But let me ask
you one question before I go. Do you consider me to blame in this
unlucky business?"

Winifred parried the question by another.

"Why should I tell you, when you don't care in the least what I
think?"

"If I did not, I should not ask you, and I think I have a right to
demand an answer."

"I can hardly answer you fairly. Is ice to blame for being ice and not
sun? We cannot say. We only know that we are chilled. I always have
the feeling that with those you consider your equals, you might be
genial and responsive; but the joys and sorrows of the great world of
uninteresting, commonplace people about you have no power to touch
your sympathies. Of course, in a way, it is not your fault that you
never noticed Tilly Marsden's manner--"

"I am not a cad who goes about investigating the sentiments of--of
women like that. But you have your impressions of my character fully
formed, and I shall not be guilty of the folly of trying to change
them. To-morrow, I shall relieve Nepaug of my objectionable presence,
and, I hope, you will cease to fear me as a disturbing element when I
am far away at my office-desk."

"You are going back to New York?" echoed Winifred, uncertainly,
realizing all of a sudden what it was that she was sending him away
from, and to what she was consigning him.

"Yes, of course," Flint answered a little impatiently.

"I am sorry," the girl began lamel