rning, she clasped her hands and said:

"Oh, Aunt Kirsteen, make him happy again! Stop that awful haunting and
keep him from all this!"

Kirsteen had listened, with one foot on the hearth in her favorite
attitude. When the girl had finished she said quietly:

"I'm not a witch, Nedda!"

"But if it wasn't for you he would never have started. And now that poor
Tryst's dead he would leave it alone. I'm sure only you can make him
lose that haunted feeling."

Kirsteen shook her head.

"Listen, Nedda!" she said slowly, as though weighing each word. "I
should like you to understand. There's a superstition in this country
that people are free. Ever since I was a girl your age I've known that
they are not; no one is free here who can't pay for freedom. It's one
thing to see, another to feel this with your whole being. When, like me,
you have an open wound, which something is always inflaming, you can't
wonder, can you, that fever escapes into the air. Derek may have caught
the infection of my fever--that's all! But I shall never lose that
fever, Nedda--never!"

"But, Aunt Kirsteen, this haunting is dreadful. I can't bear to see it."

"My dear, Derek is very highly strung, and he's been ill. It's in my
family to see things. That'll go away."

Nedda said passionately:

"I don't believe he'll ever lose it while he goes on here, tearing his
heart out. And they're trying to get me away from him. I know they are!"

Kirsteen turned; her eyes seemed to blaze.

"They? Ah! Yes! You'll have to fight if you want to marry a rebel,
Nedda!"

Nedda put her hands to her forehead, bewildered. "You see, Nedda,
rebellion never ceases. It's not only against this or that injustice,
it's against all force and wealth that takes advantage of its force and
wealth. That rebellion goes on forever. Think well before you join in."

Nedda turned away. Of what use to tell her to think when 'I won't--I
can't be parted from him!' kept every other thought paralyzed. And she
pressed her forehead against the cross-bar of the window, trying to find
better words to make her appeal again. Out there above the orchard the
sky was blue, and everything light and gay, as the very butterflies that
wavered past. A motor-car seemed to have stopped in the road close by;
its whirring and whizzing was clearly audible, mingled with the cooings
of pigeons and a robin's song. And suddenly she heard her aunt say:

"You have your chance, Nedda! Here they are!"

Ned