es do things we don't want to
do--that we don't even mean to do--that we regret ever afterwards--just
because life drives us to do them--" For a minute she hesitated, and
then added bravely, "I learned that by taking Mr. Jonathan's money."

"But you were right," he answered.

"To have the choice between love and money, and to choose--money?"

"You're putting it harshly. It wasn't money you chose--it was the world
or Old Church--Jordan's Journey or the grist mill."

For a moment the throbbing of her heart stifled her. Then she found her
voice.

"If I had the choice now I'd choose Old Church and the grist mill," she
said.

There was a short silence, and while it lasted she waited trembling, her
hand outstretched, her mouth quivering for his kisses. She remembered
how eagerly his lips had turned to hers in the past as one who thirsted
for water.

But when he spoke again it was in the same quiet voice.

"Would you, Molly!" he answered gently, and that was all. It was not a
question, but an acceptance. He made no movement toward her. His eyes
did not search her face.

They turned and walked slowly across the pasture over the
life-everlasting, which diffused under their feet a haunting and ghostly
fragrance. Myriads of grasshoppers chanted in the warm sunshine, and a
roving scent of wood-smoke drifted to them from a clearing across the
road. It was the season of the year when the earth wears its richest
and its most ephemeral splendour; when its bloom is so poignantly lovely
that it seems as if a breath would destroy it, and the curves of hill
and field melt like shadows into the faint purple haze on the horizon.

"If I could change it all now--could take you out of the life that suits
you and bring you back to the mill--I wouldn't do it. I like to think
I'm decent enough not even to want to do it," he said.

They had reached the fence that separated Gay's pasture from his, and
stopping, he held out his hand with a smile.

"I hear you're to marry Jonathan Gay," he added, "and whether or not you
do, God bless you."

"But I'm not, Abel!" she cried passionately as he turned away.

He did not look back, and when he had passed out of hearing, she
repeated her words with a passionate repudiation of the thing he had
suggested, "I'm not, Abel!--I'm not!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE TURN OF THE WHEEL

Tears blinded her eyes as she crossed the pasture, and when she brushed
them away, she could see nothing distinctly