They turned and walked slowly across the pasture over the life-everlasting, which diffused under their feet a haunting and ghostly fragrance.  Myriads of grasshoppers chanted in the warm sunshine, and a roving scent of wood-smoke drifted to them from a clearing across the road.  It was the season of the year when the earth wears its richest and its most ephemeral splendour; when its bloom is so poignantly lovely that it seems as if a breath would destroy it, and the curves of hill and field melt like shadows into the faint purple haze on the horizon.

“If I could change it all now—­could take you out of the life that suits you and bring you back to the mill—­I wouldn’t do it.  I like to think I’m decent enough not even to want to do it,” he said.

They had reached the fence that separated Gay’s pasture from his, and stopping, he held out his hand with a smile.

“I hear you’re to marry Jonathan Gay,” he added, “and whether or not you do, God bless you.”

“But I’m not, Abel!” she cried passionately as he turned away.

He did not look back, and when he had passed out of hearing, she repeated her words with a passionate repudiation of the thing he had suggested, “I’m not, Abel!—­I’m not!”

CHAPTER XIV

THE TURN OF THE WHEEL

Tears blinded her eyes as she crossed the pasture, and when she brushed them away, she could see nothing distinctly except the single pointed maple that lifted its fiery torch above the spectral procession of the aspens in the graveyard.  She had passed under the trees at the Poplar Spring, and was deep in the witch-hazel boughs which made a screen for the Haunt’s Walk, when beyond a sudden twist in the path, she saw ahead of her the figures of Blossom Revercomb and Jonathan Gay.  At first they showed merely in dim outlines standing a little apart, with the sunlit branch of a sweet gum tree dropping between them.  Then as Molly went forward over the velvety carpet of leaves, she saw the girl make a swift and appealing movement of her arms.

“Oh, Jonathan, if you only would!  I can’t bear it any longer!” she cried, with her hands on his shoulders.

He drew away, kindly, almost caressingly.  He was in hunting clothes, and the barrel of his gun, Molly saw, came between him and Blossom, gently pressing her off.

“You don’t understand, Blossom, I’ve told you a hundred times it is out of the question,” he answered.

Then looking up his eyes met Molly’s, and he stood silent without defence or explanation, before her.

“What is impossible, Jonathan?  Can I help you?” she asked impulsively, and going quickly to Blossom’s side she drew the girl’s weeping face to her breast.  “You’re in trouble, darling—­tell me, tell Molly about it,” she said.