Then he got into the wagon, and carefully clambering over impediments
came toward her. For a moment as he stood over her the sunlight was on
his face, and she, looking up at him, thought that he was not only a
fine but quite a beautiful man. The light seemed to soften and yet
ennoble his features, and his eyes, unblinking in the glare, were blue
and clear as water. When he sat down close to her little nest she
pushed the basket away from her, and raising her hand laid it on his
knees. To her delight he put his hand on hers, and left it there. He
was in shadow now, showing a dark profile, and again she admired
him--her strong, big, handsome man, her man that she was pining for.

"Will," she said tremulously, "don't move, but just look behind you,
and tell me all you see."

"I don't see anything, Mav, unless I heft meself up again."

"No, sit as you are. It just bears out what you said. We're never more
to look back. We're only to look forward. Will?"

He had taken his hand away, and turned the back of his head toward
her.

"Will," she repeated; but he did not answer. "Will, my dear one, this
_is_ going to be a fresh start, isn't it? Like a new beginning for
us."

"Yes," he said, very seriously, "that's what I build on its being.
Take it so. You and I are beginning life again in our new home."

"Bless you for saying it. The one thing I wished to hear."

"Yes, we must help each other. I'll do--I mean to do. But, maybe,
it'll be more 'v o' fight than I'm reckoning, and there's a many ways
that you can make the fight easier--beyond the one great thing you've
done a'ready."

"I will, dear. I will."

Then they were silent. The carter cracked his whip, shouted to his
team, and whistled; and the horses, neither frightened by the whip nor
excited by the whistling, drew the big wagon at exactly the same
steady pace.

And Mavis felt as if her throat had suddenly enlarged itself and
become too big for her collar, while her whole breast was swelling and
hardening until it seemed so rigidly immense that it would burst all
her garments; it was as if her whole being, together with all the
thoughts or memories that it contained felt the expansion of some
force that had been long gathering and now swiftly was released. In
all her life she had experienced no such sensations hitherto. She who
had been passive under the desires of others now felt desire active in
herself. It was not only that she wanted pardon, kindness,
c