“I lied to you!” she cried, so passionately that he leaped to his feet and stared down on her.  “I said it.  I remember.  But I lied.  I was punishing myself because I had been selfish about you.  But I didn’t believe what I was saying—­not deep in my heart.  I wanted you to say you wouldn’t go—­but I didn’t want you to look back ever and blame me for my selfishness.  You see now how wicked and wrong and weak I am.  I didn’t want the world to take you away from—­from us up here:  from the woods and the plain folks.  You’ll hate me now.  But I have to be truthful with you!” Her voice broke.

“The world has not won me away from my friends, dear.  You must know me too well for that suspicion to shame me.”

She crouched on the step before him.  Her hands, fingers interlaced, gripped each other hard to quiet their trembling.  In her girlish frailness, as she bent above her clasped hands, huddled there in the black shadow of the porch, she seemed pitifully little and helpless and forsaken.  The woe in her tones thrilled him.  She was trying hard to control her voice.

“You see, Harlan, I can look ahead and understand how it will be.  A woman does understand such things.  That’s the awful thing about being a woman—­and looking ahead and knowing how it must be before it ever happens!”

“Before what happens, Clare?  I’m trying hard to understand you.”

He leaned forward, and could see her eyes.  He had seen that look in the eyes of a stricken doe.

“The world is all outside of this place, Harlan.  You know we have always spoken of all other places than this as ‘outside.’  You have stepped through the great door.  Now you see.  You can’t help seeing.  It’s all outspread before you.  No one can blame you for not looking back here into the shadows.  The great light is all ahead.  I am—­I ought not to speak about myself.  I have no right to.  But you’ll forgive me.  I didn’t have any one to tell me!  I didn’t have any mother to advise me.  I have played through all the long days, I don’t know anything.  Other girls—­”

“Clare!  God save you, little Clare—­don’t—­don’t!” he pleaded.

“You have been away only a few days, and yet you have found out the difference.  You told me about her.  She is beautiful, and she is wise.  She has not wasted the long days.  She can help you with knowledge.  She can—­”

He put out his arms and tried to take her, cursing himself for his thoughtless cruelty.  Infinite pity and something else—­fervent, hungry desire to clasp her overmastered all the prudence of the past.  But she eluded him.  She sprang away.  She retreated to the upper step of the church porch, and he paused, gazing up at her.

“Oh, Blessed Virgin, put your fingers on my lips!” she gasped.  “Why did I say it?”

“Listen to me, Clare,” he urged, holding his arms to her.  “I know now that I’ve been waiting for you.  I thought it was friendship, but now I—­”