angers. The fact that they were strangers would enable her to see
their averted faces with comparative indifference, but that the man to
whom she had yielded her whole heart should turn away was intolerable.
She felt that he could not do this willingly but only under the
imperious instincts of his nature--that he was virtually helpless in
the matter. There was an element in these thoughts which stung her
woman's soul, and, as we have said, she could not rally.

Holcroft never suspected her morbid thoughts, and his loyal, loving
heart was incapable of dreaming of them. He only grew more unhappy as
he saw the changes in her, for he regarded himself as the cause. Yet
he was perplexed and unable to account for her rapidly increasing
pallor while he continued so kind, considerate, and especially so
unobtrusive. He assuredly thought he was showing a disposition to give
her all the time she wished to become reconciled to her lot. "Thunder!"
he said to himself, "we can't grow old together without getting used to
each other."

On Saturday noon, at dinner, he remarked, "I shall have to begin haying
on Monday and so I'll take everything to town this afternoon, for I
won't be able to go again for some days. Is there anything you'd like
me to get, Mrs. Holcroft?"

She shook her head. "I don't need anything," she replied. He looked at
her downcast face with troubled eyes and shivered. "She looks as if she
were going to be sick," he thought. "Good Lord! I feel as if there was
nothing but trouble ahead. Every mouthful I take seems to choke me."

A little later he pushed away almost untasted a piece of delicious
cherry pie, the first of the season. Alida could scarcely keep the
tears back as she thought, "There was a time when he would have praised
it without stint. I took so much pains with it in the hope he'd
notice, for he once said he was very fond of it." Such were the straws
that were indicating the deep, dark currents.

As he rose, she said almost apathetically in her dejection, "Mr.
Holcroft, Jane and I picked a basket of the early cherries. You may as
well sell them, for there are plenty left on the tree for us."

"That was too much for you to do in the hot sun. Well, I'll sell 'em
and add what they bring to your egg money in the bank. You'll get
rich," he continued, trying to smile, "if you don't spend more."

"I don't wish to spend anything," she said, turning away with the
thought, "How can he think I wa