ain."

She rose from the settle, and I rose with her, and we stood together
beside the barred window. There was no danger of her being seen; street
and square were left to the wind and the sunshine. My arm was around
her, and she leaned her head against my breast. "Perhaps we shall never
meet again," she said.

"The winter is over," I answered. "Soon the trees will be green and
the flowers in bloom. I will not believe that our spring can have no
summer."

She took from her bosom a little flower that had been pinned there. It
lay, a purple star, in the hollow of her hand. "It grew in the sun. It
is the first flower of spring." She put it to her lips, then laid
it upon the window ledge beside my hand. "I have brought you evil
gifts,--foes and strife and peril. Will you take this little purple
flower--and all my heart beside?"

I bent and kissed first the tiny blossom, and then the lips that had
proffered it. "I am very rich," I said.

The sun was now low, and the pines in the square and the upright of the
pillory cast long shadows. The wind had fallen and the sounds had died
away. It seemed very still. Nothing moved but the creeping shadows until
a flight of small white-breasted birds went past the window. "The snow
is gone," I said. "The snowbirds are flying north."

"The woods will soon be green," she murmured wistfully. "Ah, if we could
ride through them once more, back to Weyanoke"--

"To home," I said.

"Home," she echoed softly.

There was a low knocking at the door behind us. "It is Master Rolfe's
signal," she said. "I must not stay. Tell me that you love me, and let
me go."

I drew her closer to me and pressed my lips upon her bowed head. "Do you
not know that I love you?" I asked.

"Yea," she answered. "I have been taught it. Tell me that you believe
that God will be good to us. Tell me that we shall be happy yet; for oh,
I have a boding heart this day!"

Her voice broke, and she lay trembling in my arms, her face hidden. "If
the summer never comes for us"--she whispered. "Good-by, my lover and my
husband. If I have brought you ruin and death, I have brought you, too,
a love that is very great. Forgive me and kiss me, and let me go."

"Thou art my dearly loved and honored wife," I said. "My heart forebodes
summer, and joy, and peace, and home."

We kissed each other solemnly, as those who part for a journey and a
warfare. I spoke no word to Rolfe when the door was opened and she had
passed out