ounding
through the whole room, "that strange young woman has bought the
whole church fair!"

"There's something wrong," said Mrs. Whittle again.

"Ain't you got the money?" queried the man's voice.

"Yes, but--"

"Then for God's sake hang onto it!"

Chapter III

After Jim Dodge had taken his mother and sister home, he stole off by
himself for a solitary walk. The night was wonderful, and the young
man, who was in a whirl of undefined emotion, unconsciously felt the
need of a lesson of eternal peace. The advent of the strange girl,
and her unprecedented conduct had caused in him a sort of masculine
vertigo over the whole situation. Why in the name of common sense was
that girl in Brookville, and why should she have done such a thing?
He admired her; he was angry with her; he was puzzled by her.

He did not like the minister. He did not wonder that Elliot should
wish for emolument enough to pay his way, but he had a little
contempt for him, for his assumption of such superior wisdom that he
could teach his fellow men spiritual knowledge and claim from them
financial reward. Aside from keeping those he loved in comfort, Jim
had no wish for money. He had all the beauty of nature for the
taking. He listened, as he strolled along, to the mysterious high
notes of insects and night-birds; he saw the lovely shadows of the
trees, and he honestly wondered within himself why Brookville people
considered themselves so wronged by an occurrence of years ago, for
which the perpetrator had paid so dearly. At the same time he
experienced a sense of angry humiliation at the poverty of the place
which had caused such an occurrence as that church fair.

When he reached Mrs. Solomon Black's house, he stared up at its
glossy whiteness, reflecting the moonlight like something infinitely
more precious than paint, and he seemed to perceive again a delicate,
elusive fragrance which he had noticed about the girl's raiment when
she thanked him for his fox skin.

"She smelled like a new kind of flower," Jim told himself as he swung
down the road. The expression was not elegant, but it was sincere. He
thought of the girl as he might have thought of an entirely new
species of blossom, with a strictly individual fragrance which he had
encountered in an expedition afield.

After he had left the Black house, there was only a half mile before
he reached the old Andrew Bolton place. The house had been very
pretentious in an ugly arch