g he would like me to do?"

"He is in the library. Uncle Abednego will show you."

He put out his hand, "Then good-bye, Molly," he said gently.

But at the first touch of his fingers the spell was broken, and the
mystery of life, not of death, rushed over her like waves of light.
She knew now that she was alive--that the indestructible desire for
happiness was still in her heart. The meaning of life did not matter
while the exquisite, the burning sense of its sweetness remained.

"Abel," she said with a sob, half of joy, half of sorrow, "if I go on my
knees, will you forgive me?"

He had turned away, but at her voice, he stopped and looked back with
the sunlight in his eyes.

"There isn't any forgiveness in love, Molly," he answered.

"Then--oh, then if I go on my knees will you love me?"

He smiled, and even his smile, she saw, had lost its boyish brightness
and grown sadder.

"I'd like to see you on your knees, if I might pick you up," he said,
"but, Molly, I can't. You've everything to lose and I've nothing on
God's earth to give you except myself."

"But if that's all I want?"

"It isn't, darling. You may think so, but it isn't and you'd find it
out. You see all this time since I've lost you, I've been learning to
give you up. It's a poor love that isn't big enough to give up when the
chance comes to it."

"If--if you give me up, I'll let everything go," she said passionately.
"I'll not take a penny of that money. I'll stay at Old Church and live
with Betsey Bottom and raise chickens. If you give me up I'll die,
Abel," she finished with a sob.

At the sound of her sob, he laughed softly, and his laugh, unlike his
smile, was a laugh of happiness.

"If you go to live with Betsey Bottom I'll come and get you," he
answered, "but Molly, Molly, how you've tortured me. You deserve a worse
punishment than raising chickens."

"That will be happiness."

"Suppose I insist that you shall draw the water and chop the wood? My
beauty, your submission is adorable if it would only last!"

"Abel, how can you?"

"I can and I will, sweetheart. I might even make a miller's wife of you
if it was likely that I'd ever do anything but worship you and keep you
wrapped in silk. Are you very much in love at last, Molly?"

The sound of his low laugh was in her blood, and while she leaned toward
him, she melted utterly, drawing him with the light of her face, with
the quivering breath between her parted lips. To his eyes