ugh the gate on her way home, and he remained at her
side. "I want to stop in after supper, and--and see how little Joe is,"
he said, hesitatingly.

"No, not to-night, Alfred," she returned, firmly. "He'd like to see you,
but don't come the first night after--after she went away. We really
must be sensible. Folks don't understand--they never could
understand--and we've got to think of them. I may have done wrong in
letting you know how I feel, but it will end there."

"I see, I understand," he said, reverently. "They shall never talk about
you while I'm alive. Good-night."

He walked slowly toward the lights in the farm-house. He heard the two
Wrinkles, with cracked voices, singing a hymn as they sat in their
rocking-chairs on the porch. The very stars seemed to hang lower from
the darkling mystery overhead; he felt light enough, in his boundless
content, to rise to them and drink at their twinkling founts. His soul
seemed to swell to the point of bursting. "Oh, God, I thank Thee!" he
said, deep within himself. "I thank Thee!"

CHAPTER XXXII

With Henley the next day passed like some fascinating dream. He was busy
in various ways as usual, and yet scarcely for a moment were his
thoughts away from his new-found delight. He had no hope, bound as he
was to another to whom he owed his honor, of ever being closer to Dixie
than he was now, and yet there was something in the very purity of his
possession of her heart and in her willing sacrifice of so much for the
principle which guided her that lifted him into new and untrodden fields
of spiritual ecstasy.

It was near sunset, and he stood in the front doorway of the store,
looking out into the quiet square, when, to his surprise and with a
tumultuous throbbing of his heart, he saw Dixie pass with a letter in
her hand on the way to the post-office. She was on the opposite side of
the street and did not glance in his direction, and he made no effort to
attract her attention. As she passed along by old Welborne's diminutive
office Henley noticed that Hank Bradley, who had been drinking about
town through the day, came from the doorway and bowed to her
conspicuously, his slouch-hat almost sweeping the pavement as he bent
downward. She passed on with a bare nod and quickened her step till she
entered the post-office, a few doors farther on.

There was something in this, remembering as he did that Bradley had
persistently pursued the girl with attentions, which not