The roadside bushes had a spicy breath. A minty fragrance was wafted from the brookside. From fields freshly cut came the scent of hay newly mown.
Hulbert reined up his horse, and stopped his companion’s, also.
“Lena,� he said, “haven’t I been on probation long enough? You have known for a long time that I love you. How long are you going to hold me off at arm’s length?�
“A burnt child dreads the fire,� replied his companion. “I said yes once, to my sorrow. I don’t want to be hasty again.�
“I don’t like to be compared to Clif Borden,� he replied. “If you made a bad choice once, I don’t know who was to blame for it but yourself. You knew the man, or you ought to have known him; you knew, or you ought to have known, for your friends told you, that Borden had no respect for any woman, and no respect for virtue. You went into the fire, as you express it, with full knowledge of the risk you were running. I have served a good long apprenticeship for your hand. You ought to know, also, whether I am an honorable man. It is a long time since I first asked you to be my wife. Don’t be in a hurry about answering. I shall never ask you again.� And Hulbert’s horse resumed its canter down the mountain road.
There was just the least bit of the coquette about Lena Boardman. She had fully decided to accept Ford Hulbert, but she wanted to play him for awhile yet.
A thunder-shower was coming up rapidly in the south, and the blackness there was crossed by zig-zag chains of light.
The hoof-beats were out of harmony with the music of the mountain brook. Lena thought of the little spring near Phillips Porter’s, where the brook started. The little stream seemed uncertain, at first, which way to go. Soon it left the level meadow of its parent spring, and came to the steep hillside. It rippled and sparkled and tumbled alongside the mountain road for miles. Then another brook tumbled into it. Then the larger stream splashed noisily down the mountain till it joined the river. The river knew where to go. It took a strong dam to stop it and make it turn the mill-wheel.
Lena thought of the time when she had first met Hulbert. She remembered that spring of admiration for the big, handsome, courteous fellow, whom everybody respected, and who ought not to be dishonored by mention at the same time with the libertine whom she had married. She knew that he loved her, and she knew that her own love had grown, like the mountain brook, till it was too strong to be turned aside.
During the remainder of the ride Lena was considering how she might most easily surrender. They reached her own door, where Ford helped her to alight. Just then a number of pistol-shots rang out at a little distance down the street, but he paid little attention to them, for her arms were reached out toward him. She spoke but one word,—“Ford,�—but it was enough.