ion, from her white little teeth.

"You do not care?" I asked her.

"I do not care."

'Twas a shock to hear the words repeated. "Not care!" I cried out.

"I do not care," says she, turning, all at once, from the sullen
crimson of the sky, to reproach me. "Why should I care?" she demanded.
"I have never cared--never cared--about your foot!"

I should have adored her for this: but did not know enough.

"Come!" says she, rising; "there is no sunset now. 'Tis all over with.
The clouds have lost their glory. There is nothing to see. Oh, Dannie,
lad," says she--"Dannie, boy, there is nothing here to see! We must
go home."

I was cast down.

"No glory in the world!" says she.

"No light," I sighed; "no light, at all, Judith, in this gloomy
place."

And we went home....

* * * * *

For twelve days after that, while the skirt of winter still trailed
the world, the days being drear and gray, with ice at sea and cold
rain falling upon the hills, John Cather kept watch on Judith and me.
'Twas a close and anxiously keen surveillance. 'Twas, indeed,
unremitting and most daring, by night and day: 'twas a staring and
peering and sly spying, 'twas a lurking, 'twas a shy, not unfriendly,
eavesdropping, an observation without enmity or selfish purpose,
ceasing not at all, however, upon either, and most poignant when the
maid and I were left together, alone, as the wretched man must have
known, in the field of sudden junctures of feeling. I remember his
eyes--dark eyes, inquiring in a kindly way--staring from the alders of
the Whisper Cove road, from the dripping hills, from the shadowy
places of our house: forever in anxious question upon us. By this I
was troubled, until, presently, I divined the cause: the man was
disquieted, thinks I, to observe my happiness gone awry, but would not
intrude even so much as a finger upon the tangle of the lives of the
maid and me, because of the delicacy of his nature and breeding. 'Twas
apparent, too, that he was ill: he would go white and red without
cause, and did mope or overflow with a feverish jollity, and would
improperly overfeed at table or starve his emaciating body. But after
a time, when he had watched us narrowly to his heart's content, he
recovered his health and amiability, and was the same as he had been.
Judith and I were then cold and distant in behavior with each other,
but unfailing in politeness: 'twas now a settled attitude,