They heard footsteps moving about the house.  A lamp shone out from the dining-room window.  The Squire’s voice, inquiring for Kate, came across to them on the still summer air.  They looked into each other’s pale, determined faces.  Which would yield?  It was the old struggle between the sexes—­a struggle old as earth, unsettled as chaos.

Which should yield?  The man who had sinned much, or the woman who had loved much?

Sanderson employed all the force of his brutality to frighten Anna into yielding.  “See here,” and he caught her arm in no uncertain grasp.  “You’ve got to go.  You can’t stay here in the same place with me.  If money is what you want, you shall have it; but you’ve got to go.  Do you understand? Go!”

He had emphasized his words by tightening the grip on her arm, and the pain of it well nigh made her cry out.  He relaxed his hold just as Hi Holler came out on the porch, seized the supper horn and blew it furiously.  The Squire came down and looked amazed at the smartly dressed young city man talking to Anna.

“Squire,” she said, taking the initiative, “this gentleman is inquiring for you.”

On hearing the Squire’s footsteps, Sanderson turned to him with all the cordiality at his command, and, slapping him on the back, said:  “Hello, Squire, I’ve just ridden over to talk to you about your prize Jersey heifer.”  The Squire had only met Sanderson once or twice before, and that was prior to Kate’s visit to Boston; but he knew all about the young man who had become his neighbor.

Lennox Sanderson was a lucky fellow, and while waiting impatiently for his father to start him in life, his uncle, the judge, died and mentioned no one but Lennox Sanderson in his will.

The Squire had known the late Judge Sanderson, the “big man” of the county, very well, and lost no time in cultivating the acquaintance of the judge’s nephew, who had fallen heir to the fine property the judge had accumulated, no small part of which was the handsome “country seat” of the judge in the neighborhood.

That is how this fine young city man happened to drop in on the Squire so unceremoniously.  He had learned of Kate’s return from Boston and was hastening to pay his respects to the pretty girl.  To say he was astounded to find Anna on the spot is putting it mildly.  He believed she had learned of his good fortune and had followed him, to make disagreeable exactions.  It put him in a rage and it cost him a strong effort to conceal it before the Squire.

“Walk right in,” said the Squire, beaming with hospitality.  Sanderson entered and the girl found herself alone in the twilight.  Anna sat on the bench by the well-curb and faced despair.  She was physically so weak from her long and recent illness that the unexpected interview with Sanderson left her faint and exhausted.  The momentary flare up of her righteous indignation at Sanderson’s outrageous proposition that she should go away had sapped her strength and she made ready to meet one of the great crises of life with nerveless, trembling body and a mind incapable of action.