working so
slowly that the sound did not mar the hush of the place; and sometimes
he sank down at ease and pulled apart a jointed stem, his eyes feasting
on his charge.

The cows had scorned certain blooms which grew lavishly and which
Geraldine waited to gather until it should be time to return. Near a
large clump of hazel-bushes she found a low rock, and she stretched out
there in the sunshine and quiet, and tried to think.

There had been a little warm spot in her heart ever since that hour when
she read Miss Upton's letter. She was no longer utterly friendless. If
some miracle should give her back her freedom, this good woman would
help her to find independence. She longed to see that village of Keefe.
She wished never again to see a city. Did Benjamin Barry live in Keefe?
Geraldine summoned his image only too easily. Despite Miss Upton's
recommendation she did not wish to know him, or to trust him; but think
about him she must since she was dressed to his order and in the spot of
his selection. How absurd it all was! What dream could he have been
indulging when he wrote those words?

The girl could not keep her eyes from the driveway nor banish the
pulsing hope that she should see a motor-cycle again speeding up the
road. She even rose from her reclining posture lest she should not be
sufficiently conspicuous in the field; but the hours passed and nothing
occurred beyond the cows' occasional cessation from browsing to regard
her when she moved, and the occasional arising of Pete from the ground
to push his mower idly along the turf.

The flat landscape, the broad sky, everything was laid bare to the
windows of the yellow office. She felt certain that should the dusty
knight reappear, he would be recognized from afar, and that Rufus Carder
would circumvent any plan he might have. He would stop at nothing, that
she knew. She wondered if the law would excuse a man for murdering an
intruder who had once been warned off his premises. She did not doubt
that Carder would be as ready with the shot-gun she had noticed in his
office as he was with the cruel whip. She covered her face with her
hands as she recalled the sunny-eyed knight and shuddered at the thought
of another meeting between the two. It had been plain that the visitor's
youth, strength, and good looks had thrown Carder into a panic. He would
stop at nothing. Nothing.

A lanky youth with trousers tucked in his boots at last appeared,
slouching down towar