kept me there at the
gate pierced through and through by the frost, and half choked by the
stifling river mist, holding my hand in his own and refusing to leave me
until I promised to marry him.

Home was very lonely since mother died. The farm had gone quite wrong
since we lost father. My near friends advised me to wed with Kenneth
Moore, and all the village people looked upon it as a settled thing. It
was horribly cold, too, out there at the gate--and--and that was how it
came about that I consented.

I went into the house as miserable as Kenneth had gone away happy. I
hated myself for having been so weak, and I hated Kenneth because I
could not love him. The door was on the latch; I went in and flung it to
behind me, with a petulant violence that made old Hagar, who was
rheumatic and had stayed at home that evening on account of the fog,
come out of the kitchen to see what was the matter.

"It's settled at last," I cried, tearing off my bonnet and shawl; "I'm
to be Mrs. Kenneth Moore. Now are you satisfied?"

"It's best so--I'm sure it's much best so," exclaimed the old woman;
"but, deary-dear!" she added as I burst into a fit of sobbing, "how can
I be satisfied if you don't be?"

I wouldn't talk to her about it. What was the good? She'd forgotten long
ago how the heart of a girl like me hungers for its true mate, and how
frightful is the thought of giving oneself to a man one does not love!

Hagar offered condolence and supper, but I would partake of neither; and
I went up to bed at once, prepared to cry myself to sleep, as other
girls would have done in such a plight as mine.

As I entered my room with a lighted candle in my hand, there came an
awful crash at the window--the glass and framework were shivered to
atoms, and in the current of air that rushed through the room, my light
went out. Then there came a crackling, breaking sound from the branches
of the old apple tree beneath my window; then a scraping on the bricks
and window-ledge; then more splintering of glass and window-frame: the
blind broke away at the top, and my toilet table was overturned--the
looking-glass smashing to pieces on the floor, and I was conscious that
someone had stepped into the room.

At the same moment the door behind me was pushed open, and Hagar,
frightened out of her wits, peered in with a lamp in her hand.

By its light I first saw Phillip Rutley.

A well-built, manly, handsome young fellow, with bright eyes and light,