cheated him, and he would not live
it over again if he could.

Turning presently in the other direction, he discerned a patch of vivid
blue in the pasture, and knew that it was Blossom crossing the fields to
Solomon Hatch's. "She's gone a good piece out of her road," he thought,
and then, "I wonder why she doesn't marry? She might have anybody about
here if she wasn't so particular." The vivid blue spot in the midst of
the russet and brown landscape held his gaze for a moment; then calling
Moses to his side, he unlocked the door of the mill and began counting
the sacks of grist.

Outside, in the high wind, which made walking difficult, Blossom moved
in the direction of the willow copse. Gay had promised to meet her,
but she knew, from the experience of the last few months, that he would
neither hasten his luncheon nor smoke a cigar the less in order to do
so. As she pressed on the wind sang in her ears. She heard it like the
sound of rushing wings in the broomsedge, and when it died down, she
waited for it to rise again with a silken murmur in the red-topped
orchard grass. She could tell from the sound whether the gust was still
in the field of broomsedge or had swept on to the pasture.

In spite of her blue dress, in spite of the flush in her cheeks and
the luminous softness in her eyes, the joy in her bosom fluttered on
crippled wings. Gay was kind, he was gentle, he was even solicitous on
the rare occasions when she saw him; but somehow--in some way, it was
different from the ideal marriage of which she had dreamed. If he was
kind, he was also casual. She had hoped once that love would fill her
life, and now, to her despair, it looked as if it might be poured into
a tea-cup. She had imagined that it would move mountains, and the most
ordinary detail of living was sufficient to thrust it out of sight.

When she reached the brook, she saw Gay coming slowly along the Haunt's
Walk, to the spring. As he walked, he blew little clouds of smoke into
the air, and she thought, as he approached her, that the smell of his
cigar was unlike the cigar of any other man she knew--that it possessed,
in itself, a quality that was exciting and romantic. This trait in
his personality--a disturbing suggestion of the atmosphere of a richer
world--had fascinated her from the beginning, and after eighteen months
of repeated disappointments, it still held her, though she struggled now
in its power like a hare in a trap.

"So you're here