“I’ll kill you, if I catch you!”

“As a man, I am open of course to be killed by any fair means; but as a doctor, I am still bound to see after my patient’s health.”  And Tom bowed civilly, and walked back up the path to find Grace, after washing face and hands in the brook.

He found her up at Tolchard’s farm, trembling and thankful.

“I cannot do less than see Miss Harvey safe home.”

Grace hesitated.

“Mrs. Tolchard, I am sure, will walk with us; it would be safer, in case you felt faint again.”

But Mrs. Tolchard would not come to save Grace’s notions of propriety; so Tom passed Grace’s arm through his own.  She offered to withdraw it.

“No; you will require it.  You do not know yet how much you have gone through.  My fear is, that you will feel it all the more painfully when the excitement is past.  I shall send you up a cordial; and you must promise me to take it.  You owe me a little debt you know, to-day; you must pay it by taking my medicines.”

Grace looked up at him sidelong; for there was a playful tenderness in his voice which was new to her, and which thrilled her through and through.

“I will indeed, I promise you.  But I am so much better now.  Really, I can walk alone!” And she withdrew her arm from his, but not hastily.

After that they walked on awhile in silence.  Grace kept her veil down, for her eyes were full of tears.  She loved that man intensely, utterly.  She did not seek to deny it to herself.  God had given him to her, and hers he was.  The very sea, the devourer whom she hated, who hungered to swallow up all young fair life, the very sea had yielded him up to her, alive from the dead.  And yet that man, she knew, suspected her of a base and hateful crime.  It was too dreadful!  She could not exculpate herself, save by blank denial—­and what would that avail?  The large hot drops ran down her cheeks.  She had need of all her strength to prevent sobbing.

She looked round.  In the bright summer evening, all things were full of joy and love.  The hedge-banks were gay as flower gardens; the swifts chased each other, screaming harsh delight; the ring-dove murmured in the wood beneath his world-old song, which she had taught the children a hundred times—­

  “Curuckity coo, curuck coo;
  You love me, and I love you!”

The woods slept golden in the evening sunlight; and over head brooded, like one great smile of God, the everlasting blue.

“He will right me!” she said. “’Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide patiently, and He will make thy righteousness clear as the light, and thy just dealing as the noon-day!’” And after that thought she wept no more.