"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do."
"You might say you do, but you don't. But even if you do love me now you won't always."
"Yes, as long as I live."
She looked up at him, and her eyes were full of beauty and tenderness. "Your mother——"
"None of that," he broke in. "I am my own master. To me you are the most beautiful creature in the world, and——"
"Somebody's comin'," she said.
A horseman came round a bend in the road, and he stepped off from her, but they did not permit the horseman to pass between them. He did not put his arm about her again, for now they were within sight of her uncle's desolate house. They saw Wash Sanders sitting on the verandah. Tom carried the jug as far as the yard gate.
"Won't you come in?" Sanders called.
"I ought to be getting back, I guess."