e home was. The Deans' house was just
over the hill he would have but the ride to the top to see it and,
perhaps, Margaret. There was no need. As he sat, looking up the hill,
Margaret herself rode slowly over it, and down, through the sunlight
slanting athwart the dreaming woods, straight toward him. Chad sat
still. Above him the road curved, and she could not see him until she
turned the little thicket just before him. Her pony was more startled
than was she. A little leap of color to her face alone showed her
surprise.

"Did you get my note?"

"I did. You got my mother's message?"

"I did." Chad paused. "That is why I am passing around you."

The girl said nothing.

"But I'm glad I came so near. I wanted to see you once more. I wish I
could make you understand. But nobody understands. I hardly understand
myself. But please try to believe that what I say is true. I'm just
back from the mountains, and listen, Margaret--" He halted a moment to
steady his voice. "The Turners down there took me in when I was a
ragged outcast. They clothed me, fed me, educated me. The Major took me
when I was little more; and he fed me, clothed me, educated me. The
Turners scorned me--Melissa told me to go herd with the Dillons. The
Major all but turned me from his door. Your father was bitter toward
me, thinking that I had helped turn Harry to the Union cause. But let
me tell you! If the Turners died, believing me a traitor; if Lissy died
with a curse on her lips for me; if the Major died without, as he
believed, ever having polluted his lips again with my name; if Harry
were brought back here dead, and your father died, believing that his
blood was on my hands; and if I lost you and your love, and you died,
believing the same thing--I must still go. Oh, Margaret, I can't
understand--I have ceased to reason. I only know I must go!"

The girl in the mountains had let her rage and scorn loose like a
storm, but the gentlewoman only grew more calm. Every vestige of color
left her, but her eyes never for a moment wavered from his face. Her
voice was quiet and even and passionless.

"Then, why don't you go?"

The lash of an overseer's whip across his face could not have made his
soul so bleed. Even then he did not lose himself.

"I am in your way," he said, quietly. And backing Dixie from the road,
and without bending his head or lowering his eyes, he waited, hat in
hand, for Margaret to pass.

All that day Chad rode, and, next morn