-I do not love you."

"Ah! Was it a question, after all? I--you read me better than I do,
perhaps--but if I asked, I knew the answer."

She made as if to speak again, but words refused her.

After a moment, "Good-by," he said, very steadily. "I thank you for
the charity that has given me this little time with you--it will always
be--precious to me--I shall always be your servant." His steadiness did
not carry him to the end of his sentence. "Good-by."

She started toward him and stopped, without his seeing her. She answered
nothing; but stretched out her hand to him and then let it fall quickly.

"Good-by," he said again. "I shall go out the orchard gate. Please tell
them good-night for me. Won't you speak to me? Good-by."

He stood waiting while the rising wind blew their garments about them.
She leaned against the wall of the house. "Won't you say good-by and
tell me you can forget my----"

She did not speak.

"No!" he cried, wildly. "Since you don't forget it! I have spoiled
what might have been a pleasant memory for you, and I know it. You were
already troubled, and I have added, and you won't forget it, nor shall
I--nor shall I! Don't say good-by--I can say it for both of us. God
bless you--and good-by, good-by, good-by!"

He crushed his hat down over his eyes and ran toward the orchard gate.
For a moment lightning flashed repeatedly; she saw him go out the gate
and disappear into sudden darkness. He ran through the field and came
out on the road. Heaven and earth were revealed again for a dazzling
white second. From horizon to horizon rolled clouds contorted like
an illimitable field of inverted haystacks, and beneath them enormous
volumes of pale vapor were tumbling in the west, advancing eastward with
sinister swiftness. She ran to a little knoll at the corner of the house
and saw him set his face to the storm. She cried aloud to him with all
her strength and would have followed, but the wind took the words out of
her mouth and drove her back cowering to the shelter of the house.

Out on the road the dust came lashing and stinging him like a thousand
nettles; it smothered him, and beat upon him so that he covered his face
with his sleeve and fought into the storm shoulder foremost, dimly glad
of its rage, scarcely conscious of it, keeping westward on his way to
nowhere. West or east, south or north--it was all one to him. The few
heavy drops that fell boiling into the dust ceased to come; the rain
wit