me as a friend of the family, I will
come," he said, leaning over and looking down into the water. He
looked up and in her eyes he thought he saw a gentle rebuke, but it
was gone in a moment. She must have had it in her mind to tell him
that he ought to be bolder, but another feeling seemed swiftly to
come, and she said: "Your instinct is right." She held out her hand.
He grasped it, looked into her eyes, turned about and hastened toward
the town.

CHAPTER XXIX.

GONE AWAY.

A few days later, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Staggs remarked that
Mrs. McElwin and her daughter were gone on a visit to friends and
would be absent several weeks. Lyman did not think to disguise his
concern. With an abruptness that made the cups totter in the saucers
he shoved himself back from the table and fell into a deep muse. Why
should the girl have gone away just at that particular time? Was it a
blow aimed at him? He had wanted to tell her something. It was in the
nature of a confession, not startling, not, as he now viewed it,
beyond a commonplace acknowledgment, and he wondered why he should
have suppressed it. He wanted simply to tell her that, at the time
when the joking ceremony had been performed, he had looked at her,
with his mind reverting to the sick man whose face he had seen that
day at the window, and had thought of the charm she could throw upon
the gloom-weighted scene should she step into the room. This had come
to pass; he had beheld it, and his mind had been sweetened by it; he
had walked nearly all the way home with her and had not mentioned it.
He had been too talkative as a protector and too silent as a man. And,
all day, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, and, at evening, as he
sat alone in the office he cut himself with a cynical smile. Warren
came in, bright and brusque.

"Well, I've just got back from old man Pitt's," said he. "I couldn't
wait any longer, so I went. The old man was at work in the field and I
went out and told him not to disturb himself. The old lady was weaving
a rag carpet, and I told her not to let the loom fall into silence.
The girl was churning and I told her to keep at it. Ah, what a
picture, that girl at the churn. Her red calico dress was tucked up,
and her sleeves were rolled, and her hair had been grabbed in a hurry
and fastened with a thorn. She blushed and put her hand to her hair as
if she wanted to fix it, but I cried to her not to tamper with it. I
said that she mi