"The dog! I wish that horse would throw him and break his neck! He's not fit to live. Justine, if there is a man who will go to hell when he dies, that man is 'Gene Crawley. And he wants you—the hound! The sweetest, gentlest, purest girl in the world! He wants you!"
They forgot the rider, and the clatter of the horse's hoofs died away in the night. The lovers turned slowly toward the house. At the door he stooped and kissed her.
"The last night we are to part like this," he whispered.
She laid both hands upon his face.
"Let us pray to-night, dear, that we may be always as happy as we now are," she said softly.
She opened the door, and the two stood for a moment in the fair light from the cottage lamp. From above him on the door-sill, she laid her fingers in his curly brown hair, and said, half timidly, half joyfully:
"The last night we shall say good-bye like this."
Then she kissed him suddenly and was gone, blushing and trembling. He looked at the closed door for an instant, and then dropped to his knees and kissed the step on which she had stood.