had with her to leave
all and come with him, then and there, I could only imagine. Each time
Lisbeth came back from these encounters a little paler, her lips a
little firmer, her eyes burning with a steadier purpose. But it was the
sort of purpose that robs instead of giving life, that strikes back on
itself while it still clings to a sort of bitter triumph. Knowing her, I
knew that it had to be so, for to despoil her of this high integrity
would be to take from her something as essentially hers as was her
sensitive spirit, her fine sureness of vision.

So we kept silence until, as the first signs of spring came on again,
while the country alternately was flooded or lay under rigid pools of
ice, the line of her mouth seemed to soften and a glow crept into her
eyes and a dreaming. I held my breath and waited. Thin she was, like
something worn to the thread. The fine color had given place to a blue
tint in the cold, and to a colorless gray as she bent over the old stove
within. But the exquisitely moulded line of cheek and chin, the grace of
motion and the deep questing light in her eyes nothing could destroy. I
believe that, to Jim, she grew more lovely as she appeared to fade.

At last the day came when the water ran in yellowed torrents in the
creek or stood in stagnant pools under a new sun, when the blood
bounded, overwarm, in the tired body. That day Old Con caught sight of
them, walking arm in arm at the top of the hill, looking down as though
to find a footing, and talking earnestly. They had never before ventured
so near the mill. Catching sight of them from some distance, I foresaw
the meeting before I could reach them. When I came close enough to see,
Lisbeth was trembling visibly, as though from a chill, and Jim stood
glowering down at Old Con.

Suddenly Lisbeth edged herself sidewise between them, shouldering Jim
away.

"Don't touch him!" she cried. "It's what he's waiting for you to do!
Can't you see the look on his face--that wronged look of a man that's
done nothing but wrong all his life?"

She stopped, the words swelling within her, too big for utterance. Jim
put a quieting arm about her; and just then Old Con made an abrupt
motion towards her wrist.

"I guess," he said, "that a father--"

But she was before him.

"Father! He's not my father, d'ye hear? I've kept my word to him and now
I'm going to keep it to myself! You see that sun over the hills?"--She
turned to Con.--"It's the spring sun--i