, lasting, and only loving passion
of my heart, and she gave back a lie and indifferent lips, I'd drop her
into the deepest hole of my lake and take my punishment cheerfully."

"But if it would make him happy? He deserves every happiness, and he
need never know!"

The Harvester's laugh raised to an angry roar.

"You simpleton!" he cried roughly. "Do you know so little of human
passion in the heart that you think love can be a successful assumption?
Good Lord, Ruth! Do you think a man is made of wood or stone, that a
woman's lips in her first kiss wouldn't tell him the truth? Why Girl,
you might as well try to spread your tired arms and fly across the lake
as to attempt to pretend a love you do not feel. You never could!"

"I said a girl I knew!"

"'A Girl you knew,' then! Any woman! The idea is monstrous. Tell her so
and forget it. You almost scared the life out of me for a minute, Ruth.
I thought it was going to be you. But I remember your debt is to be paid
with the first money you earn, and you can not have the slightest idea
what love is, if you honestly ask if it can be simulated. No ma'am! It
can't! Not possibly! Not ever! And when the day comes that its fires
light your heart, you will come to me, and tell of a flood of delight
that is tingling from the soles of your feet through every nerve and
fibre of your body, and you will laugh with me at the time when you
asked if it could be imitated successfully. No, ma'am! Now let me help
you to the cabin, serve a good supper, and see you eat like a farmer."

All evening the Harvester was so gay he kept the Girl laughing and at
last she asked him the cause.

"Relief, honey! Relief!" cried the man. "You had me paralyzed for a
minute, Ruth. I thought you were trying to tell me that there was some
one so possessing your heart that it failed every time you tried
to think about caring for me. If you hadn't convinced me before you
finished that love never has touched you, I'd be the saddest man in the
world to-night, Ruth."

The Girl stared at him with wide eyes and silently turned away.

Then for a week they worked out life together in the woods. The
Harvester was the housekeeper and the cook. He added to his store many
delicious broths and stimulants he brought from the city. They drove
every day through the cool woods, often rowed on the lake in the
evenings, walked up the hill to the oak and scattered fresh flowers
on the two mounds there, and sat beside them ta