"But Dennie loves you just the same," said Sylv, rather falteringly.
The girl clasped her hands and gazed absently in front of her. "I know he does," she said, in an inert way. "I know it well enough."
"And you know he has been trying to learn to read, just to please you, and so as to keep up with you as well as he can."
"Yes." But still her face did not lighten. The gathering sadness deepened upon it, if anything. "Oh, why did I come here!" she suddenly cried, despairingly. "If Mr. Lance had not sent me! Ah, what was the use?"
Sylv regarded her compassionately, but he was himself undergoing an anguish that it seemed impossible to withstand.
"Come," he said, soothingly, "let's go down yonder among the trees and talk about it. We'll see if there isn't some way of making you happy. I reckon the time has come for a change, and we ought to see what is needed."
She yielded, as though he were entitled to lead her. Taking his hand, she walked with him down on to the young grass at the side of the highway, and in among the trees alongside the "run." In the retired nook that they came to they seated themselves, while the spring breeze murmured through the light leaves above them, unsuspicious of any woe in the minds of these two young persons.
"I was angry with Dennie," said Adela, speaking low, "and that was why I left him to come here. But he has been so good, and so patient."
"Yes, that he has!" Sylv corroborated, fervently. "Why don't you go back to him?"
The gaze which Sylv fixed upon her, in asking this question, was very unlike that of an impartial and philosophic adviser. His eyes burned with a rapacious though restrained fire. Yet his tone was composed.