except the single pointed
maple that lifted its fiery torch above the spectral procession of the
aspens in the graveyard. She had passed under the trees at the Poplar
Spring, and was deep in the witch-hazel boughs which made a screen for
the Haunt's Walk, when beyond a sudden twist in the path, she saw ahead
of her the figures of Blossom Revercomb and Jonathan Gay. At first they
showed merely in dim outlines standing a little apart, with the sunlit
branch of a sweet gum tree dropping between them. Then as Molly went
forward over the velvety carpet of leaves, she saw the girl make a swift
and appealing movement of her arms.

"Oh, Jonathan, if you only would! I can't bear it any longer!" she
cried, with her hands on his shoulders.

He drew away, kindly, almost caressingly. He was in hunting clothes, and
the barrel of his gun, Molly saw, came between him and Blossom, gently
pressing her off.

"You don't understand, Blossom, I've told you a hundred times it is out
of the question," he answered.

Then looking up his eyes met Molly's, and he stood silent without
defence or explanation, before her.

"What is impossible, Jonathan? Can I help you?" she asked impulsively,
and going quickly to Blossom's side she drew the girl's weeping face to
her breast. "You're in trouble, darling--tell me, tell Molly about it,"
she said.

As they clung together in a passion of despair and of pity--the one
appealing by sheer helplessness, the other giving succour out of an
abundant self-reliance--Gay became conscious that he was witnessing
the secret wonder of Molly's nature. The relation of woman to man was
dwarfed suddenly by an understanding of the relation of woman to woman.
Deeper than the dependence of sex, simpler, more natural, closer to the
earth, as though it still drew its strength from the soil, he realized
that the need of woman for woman was not written in the songs nor in the
histories of men, but in the neglected and frustrated lives which the
songs and the histories of men had ignored.

"Tell me, Blossom--tell Molly," said the soft voice again.

"Molly!" he said sharply, and as she looked at him over Blossom's
prostrate head, he met a light of anger that seemed, while it lasted, to
illumine her features.

"Blossom and I were married nearly two years ago," he said.

"Nearly two years ago?" she repeated. "Why have we never known it?"

"I had to think of my mother," he replied almost doggedly. Then driven
by a rush o