They had reached a little deserted spring in the pasture called "Poplar Spring," after the six great poplars which grew beside it. Eugenia seated herself on a fallen log beside the tiny stream which trickled over the smooth, round stones, bearing away, like miniature floats, the yellow leaves that fell ceaselessly from the huge branches above.
"I don't believe you know how I love you," he said suddenly.
"Tell me," she insatiably demanded.
"If I could tell you I shouldn't love you as I do. There are some things one can't talk about—but you are life itself—and you are all heaven and all hell to me."
"I don't want to be hellish," she put in provokingly.
"But you are—when I think you may slip from me, after all."
The yellow leaves fluttered over them—over the fallen log and over the bright green moss beside the little spring. As Eugenia turned towards him, a single leaf fell from her hair to the ground.
"Oh! You are thinking of Dudley Webb!" she said, and laughed because jealousy was her own darling sin.
"Yes, I am thinking—" he began, when she stopped him.
"Well, you needn't. You may just stop at once. I—love—you—Nick—Burr. Say it after me."