of the sort. It was perfectly natural. I knowed it
was comin'. I knowed that he mashed your mouth. And what was it all
about? How about that?"

Milford arose to go. Mrs. Goodwin begged him to sit down. Mrs. Blakemore
was in a flutter of excitement. Blakemore stood with his mouth open.
Gunhild looked straight at Milford. "Did you hit him, Mr. Milford?" she
asked.

"Yes," he promptly answered.

"Then you must have had a good cause, and I shall wait before feeling
sorry for him. But I could not feel very sorry anyway. I do not like
him. He has the eye of a beast. May we ask why you struck him?"

"He made a remark about you."

The girl jumped up from her seat, anger flaming in her eyes. Mrs.
Goodwin made some sort of cooing noise. Mrs. Blakemore cried "Oh!" and
fluttered.

"That's all I've got to say," said Milford. "I oughtn't to have said
that much, and wouldn't if it hadn't come round as it did. And now I
must ask you to let the subject drop."

Gunhild sat down without a word. But in her quietness of manner was a
turbulent spirit choked into subjection. In all things it seemed that
her modesty was a conscious immodesty held in restraint. The uncouth
girl, with utterance harsh in rough words of men from the far north, had
been remodeled by the English school. But the blood of the Viking was
strong within her, as she sat there, striving to appear submissive; but
Milford fancied that she would like to dash out Dorsey's brains with a
war-club. He sat down beside her, and with a cool smile she said: "Made
a remark about me. It takes me back to the potato-field. I must thank
you. We are fellow workmen." She spoke in a low voice. He looked from
one to another, as if afraid that they might hear her. "It makes no
difference," she said.

"Yes, it does. It is none of their business. I am going to set claim to
all that part of the past. You may share your pleasure with them, but
your trouble belongs to me. I will mix it with mine."

"The color might be dark," she replied.

"But two dark colors may make a white hope."

She shook her head and looked about as if now she were afraid that some
one might hear. But the other boarders were talking among themselves.
Mrs. Goodwin, at the far end of the bench, was giving to Blakemore her
idea of the future life; Mrs. Blakemore had run off, summoned by an
alarming howl from the boy; Mrs. Stuvic, still a believer in
spiritualism and a devotee of fortune-telling, stood near, sniffin