"Jean," she cried, and came close to him. She looked up into his eyes and saw what was troubling him. She got beside him closely then. She placed an arm around him, and with her free hand she lifted his left hand over her shoulder and held his fingers as she looked away across the harvest fields, and sighed lightly as she said:
"Something happened and I was strangely glad and came here because—because I—just had to see you, Jean."
"Please, Jean. You—will—forget that now." She paused and was not aware that her arm was around him, and that his hand rested over her shoulder. Her eyes were as they had been that day near this selfsame spot years before, kind and endearing. She did not resist as she saw his manly love and felt his body quiver.
And almost were his lips touching hers when suddenly, she saw him hesitate, and despite the darkness of his face, she could see that in that moment the blood seemed to leave it. He dropped the arms that had embraced her, and almost groaned aloud. As she stood regarding him he turned and walked away with his eyes upon the earth.
She turned then and retraced her steps, but as she went along the roadway she was thinking of him and herself and who she was at last. She sighed, strangely contented, and was positive—knew that in due time he too must come to understand.
CHAPTER XX
AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING
IT WAS in the autumn time, after the wheat and the oats, the rye, the barley and the flaxseed had all been gathered, and threshed, and also after the corn had been husked. Wheat, he had raised, thousands and thousands of bushels. And because there was war over all the old world, and the great powers of the land were in the grim struggle of trying to crush each other from the face of the earth, the power under which he lived was struggling with the task of feeding a portion of those engaged in the struggle. And because Black Rust had impaired the spring wheat yield those thousands of bushels he raised, he had sold at a price so high that he had sufficient to redeem at last the land he was about to lose and money left for future development into the bargain.
He sat alone at this moment in a stateroom aboard a great continental limited, just out of Omaha and speeding westward to the Pacific coast. As was his customary wont, his thoughts were prolific. But for once—and maybe for the first time, on the whole, he was satisfied,—he was contented—and last, but not least, he was happy.