"Not only that. I like the people. I like their simple fashions. One gets at human life and human nature here. I don't think I was ever, at heart, a city boy. I don't like living at arm's length from everybody. People come close together, in the country. And—Faith! what a minister you've got here! What a sermon that was he preached last Sunday! I've never been what you might call one of the serious sort; but such a sermon as that must do anybody good."
Faith felt a warmth toward Paul as he said this, which was more a drawing of the heart than he had gained from her by all the rest.
"My father says he will keep him here, if money can do it. He never goes to church at Lakeside, now. It needs just such a man among mill villages like these, he says. My father thinks a great deal of his workpeople. He says nobody ought to bring families together, and build up a neighborhood, as a manufacturer does, and not look out for more than the money. I think he'll expect a great deal of me, if he leaves me here, at the head of it all. More than I can ever do, by myself."
"Mr. Armstrong will be the very best help to you," said Faith. "I think he means to stay. I'm sure Kinnicutt would seem nothing without him, now."
"Faith! Will you help me to make a home here?"
She could not speak. A great shock had fallen upon her whole nature, as if a thunderbolt she had had presentiment of, burst from a clear blue sky.
They drove on for minutes, without another word.
"Faith! You don't answer me. Must I take silence as I please? It can't be that you don't care for me!"
"No, no!" cried Faith, desperately, like one struggling for voice through a nightmare. "I do care. But—Paul! I don't know! I can't tell. Let me wait, please. Let me think."
"As long as you like, darling," said he, gently and tenderly. "You know all I can tell you. You know I have cared for you all my life. And I'll wait now till you tell me I may speak again. Till you put on that little ring of mine, Faith!"