die. You are good, and would harm no one."

After this visit Leam saw Alick whenever she called at the house,
which, however, was not so often as heretofore, and week by week
became still more seldom. Something was growing up in her heart
against him that made his presence a discomfort. It was not fear
nor moral dislike, but it was a personal distaste that threatened to
become unconquerable. She hated to be with him; hated to see his face
looking at her with such yearning tenderness as abashed her somehow
and made her lower her eyes; hated his endeavors to convert her to
an orthodox acceptance of mysteries she could not understand and of
explanations she could not believe; hated his sadness, hated his joy:
she only wished that he would go away and leave her alone. What did
he mean? What did he want? He was changing from the blushing, awkward,
subservient dog of his early youth, and from the still subservient if
also more argumentative pastor of these later days alike, and she did
not like the new Alick who was gradually creeping into the place of
the old.

When Mrs. Corfield spoke of taking him to the sea for change of air,
her heart bounded as if a weight had been suddenly removed, and she
said, "Yes, he ought to go," so warmly that the mother was surprised,
wondering if she cared so much for him that the idea of his getting
good elated her beyond herself and made her forget her usual reserve.
She instinctively contrived not to see him alone now when she went to
Steel's Corner during his tedious convalescence, for the poor fellow
mended but slowly, if surely. Either she had only a short time to
stay, and so stood for a moment, making serious talk impossible, or
she took little Fina with her, or maybe she entangled Mrs. Corfield
in the conversation so that she should not leave them alone, the vague
fear and distaste possessing her making her strangely _rusee_ and on
the alert. But one day she was caught. It had to come, and it was only
a question of time. She knew that, as we know when our doom is upon
us.

Leam had not intended to go in to-day, but Alick, who was in the
garden rejoicing in the warmth and freshness of this tender April
noontide, came to meet her at the second gate, and asked her to come
and sit with him on the garden-seat, there where the budding lilacs
began to show their bloom, and there where they sat on that fatal day
when she had hidden the little phial in her hair and bade him tell her
of fl