t know. I was a child. Not since I knew
you, Bles--never, never since I saw you."

"Since--since," he groaned--"Christ! But before?"

"Yes, before."

"My God!"

She knew the end had come. Yet she babbled on tremblingly:

"He was our master, and all the other girls that gathered there did his
will; I--I--" she choked and faltered, and he drew farther away--"I
began running away, and they hunted me through the swamps. And
then--then I reckon I'd have gone back and been--as they all are--but
you came, Bles--you came, and you--you were a new great thing in my
life, and--and--yet, I was afraid I was not worthy until you--you said
the words. I thought you knew, and I thought that--that purity was just
wanting to be pure."

He ground his teeth in fury. Oh, he was an innocent--a blind baby--the
joke and laughing-stock of the country around, with yokels grinning at
him and pale-faced devils laughing aloud. The teachers knew; the girls
knew; God knew; everybody but he knew--poor blind, deaf mole, stupid
jackass that he was. He must run--run away from this world, and far off
in some free land beat back this pain.

Then in sheer weariness the anger died within his soul, leaving but
ashes and despair. Slowly he turned away, but with a quick motion she
stood in his path.

"Bles," she cried, "how can I grow pure?"

He looked at her listlessly.

"Never--never again," he slowly answered her.

Dark fear swept her drawn face.

"Never?" she gasped.

Pity surged and fought in his breast; but one thought held and burned
him. He bent to her fiercely:

"Who?" he demanded.

She pointed toward the Cresswell Oaks, and he turned away. She did not
attempt to stop him again, but dropped her hands and stared drearily up
into the clear sky with its shining worlds.

"Good-bye, Bles," she said slowly. "I thank God he gave you to me--just
a little time." She hesitated and waited. There came no word as the man
moved slowly away. She stood motionless. Then slowly he turned and came
back. He laid his hand a moment, lightly, upon her head.

"Good-bye--Zora," he sobbed, and was gone.

She did not look up, but knelt there silent, dry-eyed, till the last
rustle of his going died in the night. And then, like a waiting storm,
the torrent of her grief swept down upon her; she stretched herself upon
the black and fleece-strewn earth, and writhed.

_Sixteen_

THE GREAT REFUSAL

All night Miss Smith lay holding the quivering form