She did not wonder, then, that on one drive she had permitted him to hold her hand in his. What a strong hand it was, and how could so weak a hand as her's resist it? And all the time he had talked so beautifully and had quoted Browning and Keats. And finally he had told her that she had only to say the word, and leave the mill with him forever.
But where, she did not even care—only to get away from the mill, from her disgrace, from her drunken father, from her wretched life.
And another night, when he had helped her out of the buggy, and while she was close to him and looking downward, he had bent over her and kissed her on the neck, where her hair had been gathered up and had left it white and fair and unprotected. And it sent a hot flame of shame to the depths of her brain, but she could only look up and say—“Oh, please don't—please don't, Mr. Travis,” and then dart quickly into the old gate and run to her home.
But within it was only to meet the taunts and sneers of her father that brought again the hot Conway blood in defying anger to her face, and then she had turned and rushed back to the gate which Travis had just left, crying:
“Take me now—anywhere—anywhere. Carry me away from here.”
But she heard only the sound of his trotters' feet up the road, and overcome with the reflective anguish of it all, she had tottered and dropped beneath the tree upon the grass—dropped to weep.
After a while she sat up, and going down the long path to the old spring, she bathed her face and hands in its cool depths. Then she sat upon a rock which jutted out into the water. It calmed her to sit there and feel the rush of the air from below, upon her hot cheeks and her swollen eyes.
The moon shone brightly, lighting up the water, the rocks which held the spring pool within their fortress of gray, and the long green path of water-cresses, stretching away and showing where the spring branch ran to the pasture.
Glancing down, she saw her own image in the water, and she smiled to see how beautiful it was. There was her hair hanging splendidly down her back, and in the mirror of water beneath she saw it was tinged with that divine color which had set the Roman world afire in Cleopatra's days. But then, there was her dress—her mill dress.
She sighed—she looked up at the stars. They always filled her with great waves of wonder and reverence.