"You came in a vision, and it must have been divine, two years ago gone now," she heard him; "and ever since your face, dear, has been before me. I have loved it, and, of course, I knew that I would surely love you when you came."
"Isn't it strange," she whispered.
"But beautiful."
"So beautiful."
"Was it providence, or was it God that brought you that night and saved me from the slow death that was coming over me, Agnes?"
"Please, Jean, don't! Don't speak again of that awful night! Surely it must have been some divine providence that brought me to this place; but I can never recall it without a tremor. To think that you would have died out there! Please, never tell me of it again, dear." She trembled and nestled closer to him, while her little heart beat a tattoo against her ribs. They looked up then, as across the field her halfwitted brothers were approaching. It was only then that they seemed to realize what had transpired and upon realization they silently disembraced. What had passed was the most natural thing in the world, true; and to them it had come because it was in them to assert themselves, but now before him rose the Custom of the Country, and its law. So vital is this Custom; so much is it a part of the body politic that certain states have went on record against it. Not because any bad, or good, any wealth or poverty was involved. It had been because of sentiment, the sentiment of the stronger faction....
So it ruled.
In the lives of the two in our story, no thought but to live according to God's law, and the law of the land, had ever entered their minds, but now they had while laboring under the stress of the pent-up excitement and emotion overruled and forgot the law two races are wont to observe and had given vent and words to the feeling which was in them.... They stood conventionally apart now, each absorbed in the calm realization of their positions in our great American society. They were obviously disturbed; but that which had drawn them to the position they had occupied and declared, still remained, and that was love.
So time had gone on as time will; never stopping for anything, never hesitating, never delaying. So the day went, and the week and the month, and the month after that and the month after that, until in time the holidays were near, and Jean Baptiste was going away, away to forget that which was more to him than all the world—the love of Agnes Stewart.
He had considered it—he had considered it before he caught the one he loved into his arms and said the truth that was in him.... But there was another side to it that will have much space in our story.