“One year had passed since Alice’s death before Abraham’s coming.  Another had almost fled before the eventful time when I began to feel the weight of my cross.  I know not how it came to Abraham’s knowledge that Bernard McKey felt in his soul my presence.  I only know that he came home one night, with a storm of rage whitening his lips and furrowing his forehead.  He came up here, where I was sitting.  I had watched his figure coming through tree-openings from Doctor Percival’s house, and mingled with the memories of the fair young girl whom I had seen dead by lightning were fears for Mary Percival.  For several days she had been ill, and I knew that Abraham felt anxious; therefore I did not wonder at his hasty coming in and instant seeking of me.  He came quite close.  He wound his face in between me and the darkening sky; he whispered hoarsely,—­

“‘Do you care for him?’

“‘What is it, Abraham?’ I asked, startled by his words and manner, but with not the faintest idea of the meaning entering in with his words.

“‘Bernard McKey, is he anything to you?’

“‘You’ve no right to question me thus,’ I said.

“‘And you will not answer me?’

“‘I will not, Abraham.’

“The next morning Abraham was gone.  He had not told me of his intended absence.  He had only left a note, stating the time of his return.

“It was a week ere he came.  Mary had not improved in his absence, yet no one deemed her very ill.

“I dreaded Abraham’s coming home, because he had left me in silent anger; but how could I have replied to his question otherwise than I did?  No one, not Mr. McKey himself, had asked me; and should I give him, my brother, my answer first?

“Lazily the village-clock swung out the hours that summer’s afternoon.  The stroke of three awakened me.  I had not seen Mary that day.

“‘I would go and see her,’ I decided.

“‘She was sleeping, the dear child,’ Chloe said.  ’She would come and tell me when she was awake, if I would wait.’

“I said that I would stay awhile, and I wandered out under the shade of the great whispering trees, to wait the waking hour.

“I remember the events of that afternoon, as Mary and Martha must have remembered the day on which Lazarus came up from the grave unto them.

“The air was still, save a humming in the very tree-tops that must have been only echoes tangled there, breezes that once blew past.  The long grape-arbor at the end of the lawn looked viny and cool.  I walked up and down under the green archway, until Chloe’s words summoned me.

“Mary was ‘better,’ she said; ’a few days, and she should feel quite strong, she hoped’; but she looked weary, and I only waited a little while, until her father and mother came in, and then I went.

“Mr. McKey was sitting in the door of the little white office.  He came out to meet me ere I had reached the street,—­asked if I was on my way home.