Sophia wandered under the branches; her mind was moving always.  She was unhappy.  Yes, she deserved that; but he—­he was unhappy too; did he deserve it?  Then she asked herself suddenly if she had no further duty toward him than to come or go at his call.  Did she dare, by all that was true, to wreck his life and her own because she would not stoop to compel the call that she had feared?

Humility does not demand that we should think ill of ourselves, but that we should not think of ourselves at all.  When Sophia lost sight of herself she saw the gate of Paradise.  After that she was at one again with the sunshine and the breeze and the birds, with the rapture of the day and the land, and she ceased to think why she acted, or whether it was right or wrong.  The best and worst hours of life are in themselves irresponsible, the will hurled headlong forward by an impulse that has gathered force before.

And what did she do?  The first thing that entered her mind—­it mattered not what to her.  The man was in her power, and she knew it.

When the children’s arms were full and they had gone on homeward down a pathway among lower sumac thickets, Alec turned and saw Sophia, just as stately, just as quiet, as he had ever seen her.  So they two began to follow.

Her hand had been cut the day before, and the handkerchief that bound it had come off.  Demurely she gave it to him to be fastened.  Now the hand had been badly cut, and when he saw that he could not repress the tenderness of his sympathy.

“How could you have done it?” he asked, filled with pain, awed, wondering.

She laughed, though she did not mean to; she was so light-hearted, and it was very funny to see how quickly he softened at her will.

“Do not ask me to tell you how low we Rexfords have descended!” she cried, “and yet I will confess I did it with the meat axe.  I ought not to touch such a thing, you think!  Nay, what can I do when the loin is not jointed and the servant has not so steady a hand as I?  Would you have me let papa grumble all dinner-time—­the way that you men do, you know?”

The little horror that she had painted for him so vividly did its work.  With almost a groan he touched the hand with kisses, not knowing what he did; and looking up, frightened of her as far as he could be conscious of fear, he saw, not anger, but a face that fain would hide itself, and he hid it in his embrace.

“Oh,” cried he, “what have I done?”

Stepping backward, he stood a few paces from her, his arms crossed, the glow on his face suddenly transcended by the look with which a man might regard a crime he had committed.

“What is it?” she cried, wickedly curious.  The maple tree over her was a golden flame and her feet were on a carpet of gold.  All around them the earth was heaped with palm-like sumac shrubs, scarlet, crimson, purple—­dyed as it were, with blood.

“What have I done?” He held out his hands as if they had been stained.  “I have loved you, I have dared, without a thought, without a thought for you, to walk straight into all the—­the—­heaven of it.”