“Why, to the old mill,” was his reply. “I wanted a little walk, then a rest.”
Ten minutes later they were looking from a window of the mill, out upon the great wheel which had done all the work the past generations had given it to do, and was now dropping into decay as it had long dropped into disuse. Moss had gathered on the great paddles; many of them were broken, and the debris had been carried away by the freshets of spring and the floods of autumn.
They were silent for a time. Presently she looked up at him.
“You’re much better to-day,” she said; “better than you’ve been since—since that night!”
“Oh, I’m all right,” he answered; “right as can be.” He suddenly turned on her, put his hand upon her arm, and said:
“Come, now, tell me what there was between you and Vanne Castine—once upon a time.
“He was in love with me five years ago,” she said.
“And five years ago you were in love with him, eh?” “How dare you say that to me!” she answered. “I never was. I always hated him.”
She told her lie with unscrupulous directness. He did not believe her; but what did that matter! It was no reason why he should put her at a disadvantage, and, strangely enough, he did not feel any contempt for her because she told the lie, nor because she had once cared for Castine. Probably in those days she had never known anybody who was very much superior to Castine. She was in love with himself now; that was enough, or nearly enough, and there was no particular reason why he should demand more from her than she demanded from him. She was lying to him now because—well, because she loved him. Like the majority of men, when women who love them have lied to them so, they have seen in it a compliment as strong as the act was weak. It was more to him now that this girl should love him than that she should be upright, or moral, or truthful. Such is the egotism and vanity of such men.
“Well, he owes me several years of life. I put in a bad hour that night.”