myself from doing the worst?"

A scarlet flush suffused her face at his words.

"Ah, don't!" she cried, putting out her hand, as though to ward off a
blow. "Don't! Don't say it! Don't even think it! Believe me, it could
never have been like that! I should have died first!"

X

TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND

She turned and left him, walking quietly along the narrow path through
the harrowed field under the silent pines. The feeling of death was upon
her. She wanted to cover her eyes, to blot out the sun, to run to some
friendly darkness to make her moan. She knew he was watching her,
however, and carried her head well up. She hoped that he could not see
that her hands were clinched. As she went on, her cheeks scarlet, her
carriage splendidly undejected, the wish came to her that she could
sing. It would prove to him that she had the will not to let this thing
crush her, not to be as other women might have been. But her sincere
soul put the thought aside because of its untruth. She had given him a
great honesty always, she would give it to him until the end. He knew
she suffered, but she desired him to know as well that she was brave,
that her spirit was unconquered, that she would do something rather
than weakly suffer in ineffectual rebellion.

On the crest of the hill she turned to look at him. He was standing with
his eyes fastened on her, the strained whiteness of his face marked out
against the black of his horse's mane.

Across the distance she had covered their eyes met. The slim little
figure in the black frock outlined against the blue of the sky, the wind
blowing the pines over her head, her dusky hair holding the sun, her
skirts, pushed backward by the wind, revealing her childish body full of
exquisite vitality. The tears stood big in her eyes, but hers was a
soldier's courage, the courage to face defeat, a thing goodly to see in
man or woman. Hastily she untied the scarlet kerchief she wore around
her throat and waved it to him, high, at arm's-length, like a flag of
victory.

"Ah, don't worry! It's all right!" she called. "Don't think about me!
Good-bye!"

At the back of the lodge, down by the brook, there was a place shut in
by bushes and roofed over by boughs, where she had often before hidden
her grief. Reaching this leafy room, she threw herself on the
pine-needles, moving her head from side to side as if in physical pain.
There was shame mixed with the grief. Remembered endearments came back