A dainty little figure in the plainest of calico, lay curled up on the sod beneath the big maple. Her face was buried in both arms; her whole body trembled, as she struggled hard against the great sobs.
“Faith––” interrupted the man softly, “Faith––”
The sobs became more violent.
“Go away, Guy,” pleaded a tearful, muffled voice between the breaks. “Please go away, please––”
The man knelt swiftly down on the grass; irresistibly his arm spread over the dainty, trembling, little woman. Then as suddenly he drew back with a face white as moonlight, and a sound in his throat that was almost a groan.
He knelt a moment so, then touched her shoulder gently––as he would have touched earth’s most sacred thing.
“Faith––” he repeated uncertainly.
The girl buried her head more deeply.
“I won’t, I tell you,” she cried chokingly, 40 “I won’t––” she could say no more. There were no words in her meagre vocabulary to voice her bitterness of heart.
The man got to his feet almost roughly, face and hands set like a lock. He stood a second looking passionately down at her.