from
him. Did he know she did not really love him. Suppose Melanctha was
now suffering through him. Suppose she really would be glad to see
him. And did anything else he did, really mean anything now to him?
What a fool he was to cast her from him. And yet did Melanctha Herbert
want him, was she honest to him, had Melanctha ever loved him, and
did Melanctha now suffer by him? Oh! Oh! Oh! and the bitter water once
more rose up in him.

All that long day, with the warm moist young spring stirring in him,
Jeff Campbell worked, and thought, and beat his breast, and wandered,
and spoke aloud, and was silent, and was certain, and then in doubt
and then keen to surely feel, and then all sodden in him; and he
walked, and he sometimes ran fast to lose himself in his rushing, and
he bit his nails to pain and bleeding, and he tore his hair so that he
could be sure he was really feeling, and he never could know what it
was right, he now should be doing. And then late that night he wrote
it all out to Melanctha Herbert, and he made himself quickly send it
without giving himself any time to change it.

"It has come to me strong to-day Melanctha, perhaps I am wrong the
way I now am thinking. Perhaps you do want me badly to be with you.
Perhaps I have hurt you once again the way I used to. I certainly
Melanctha, if I ever think that really, I certainly do want bad not
to be wrong now ever any more to you. If you do feel the way to-day it
came to me strong maybe you are feeling, then say so Melanctha to me,
and I come again to see you. If not, don't say anything any more ever
to me. I don't want ever to be bad to you Melanctha, really. I never
want ever to be a bother to you. I never can stand it to think I am
wrong; really, thinking you don't want me to come to you. Tell me
Melanctha, tell me honest to me, shall I come now any more to see
you." "Yes" came the answer from Melanctha, "I be home Jeff to-night
to see you."

Jeff Campbell went that evening late to see Melanctha Herbert. As Jeff
came nearer to her, he doubted that he wanted really to be with her,
he felt that he did not know what it was he now wanted from her. Jeff
Campbell knew very well now, way inside him, that they could never
talk their trouble out between them. What was it Jeff wanted now to
tell Melanctha Herbert? What was it that Jeff Campbell now could tell
her? Surely he never now could learn to trust her. Surely Jeff knew
very well all that Melanctha always h