ing. What he saw was the very worst that his heart feared.

Along the road, at a little distance from the house, was a mock-orange
hedge, now bare, naked, leafless. As Hiram drew near he heard footsteps
approaching and low voices. He drew back into the fence corner and there
stood, half sheltered by the stark network of twigs. Two figures passed
slowly along the gray of the roadway in the gloaming. One was his
stepbrother, the other was Sally Martin. Levi's arm was around her, he
was whispering into her ear, and her head rested upon his shoulder.

Hiram stood as still, as breathless, as cold as ice. They stopped upon
the side of the road just beyond where he stood. Hiram's eyes never
left them. There for some time they talked together in low voices,
their words now and then reaching the ears of that silent, breathless
listener.

Suddenly there came the clattering of an opening door, and then Betty
Martin's voice broke the silence, harshly, shrilly: "Sal!--Sal!--Sally
Martin! You, Sally Martin! Come in yere. Where be ye?"

The girl flung her arms around Levi's neck and their lips met in one
quick kiss. The next moment she was gone, flying swiftly, silently, down
the road past where Hiram stood, stooping as she ran. Levi stood looking
after her until she was gone; then he turned and walked away whistling.

His whistling died shrilly into silence in the wintry distance, and
then at last Hiram came stumbling out from the hedge. His face had never
looked before as it looked then.

IX

Hiram was standing in front of the fire with his hands clasped behind
his back. He had not touched the supper on the table. Levi was eating
with an appetite. Suddenly he looked over his plate at his stepbrother.

"How about that five hundred pounds, Hiram?" said he. "I gave ye a month
to raise it and the month ain't quite up yet, but I'm goin' to leave
this here place day after to-morrow--by next day at the furd'st--and I
want the money that's mine."

"I paid it to Squire Hall to-day and he has it fer ye," said Hiram,
dully.

Levi laid down his knife and fork with a clatter. "Squire Hall!" said
he, "what's Squire Hall got to do with it? Squire Hall didn't have the
use of that money. It was you had it and you have got to pay it back to
me, and if you don't do it, by G----, I'll have the law on you, sure as
you're born."

"Squire Hall's trustee--I ain't your trustee," said Hiram, in the same
dull voice.

"I don't know nothing abo