about Simon Basset," Elmira
assented, shudderingly.

Jerome had to force himself to his work after he had received Mrs.
Merritt's message. The tragedy of Simon Basset had given him a
terrible shock, and now this last set his nerves in a tumult in spite
of himself.

"What can she want?" he questioned, over and over. "Shall I see
Lucina? What can her mother have to say to me?"

One minute, thinking of Simon Basset, he stood convicted, to his
shame, of the utter despicableness of all his desires pertaining to
the earth and the flesh, by that clear apprehension of eternity which
often comes to one at the sight of sudden death. He settled with
himself that wealth and success and learning, and love itself even,
where as nothing beside that one surety of eternity, which holds the
sequence of good and evil, and is of the spirit.

Then, in a wild rebellion of honesty, he would own to himself that,
whether he would have it so or not, to his understanding, still
hampered by the conditions of the flesh, perhaps made morbid by
resistance to them, but that he could not tell, love was the one
truth and reality and source of all things; that life was because of
love, not love because of life.

Jerome set his mouth hard as he ploughed. The newly turned sods clung
to his feet and made them heavy, as the fond longings of the earth
clung to his soul. It seemed to Jerome that he had never loved Lucina
as he loved her then, that he had never wanted her so much. Also that
he had never been so firmly resolved to give her up. If Lucina had
seemed beyond his reach before, she seemed doubly so then, and her
new wealth loomed between them like an awful golden flood of
separation. "I have given away all my money," he said. "Shall I marry
a wife with money, to make good my loss?" He laughed at himself with
bitter scorn for the fancy.

After supper, he dressed himself in his best clothes, and set out for
Squire Merritt's, evading as much as he could his mother's questions
and surmises. Ann's bitterness at his disposal of his money was
softened to loquacity by her curiosity.

"I s'pose," said she, "that if that poor girl goes down on her knees
to you, an' tells you her heart is breakin', that you'll jest hand
her over to the town poor, the way you did your money."

"Don't, mother," whispered Elmira, as Jerome went out, making no
response.

"I'm goin' to say what I think 's best. I'm his mother," returned
Ann. But when Jerome was gone, sh