“And after telling yourself those dreadful truths, what happens?” she inquired with interest.

“What happens?  Well, I go to work and don’t think of you for at least three hours.  Then, when I am dead tired I stop for a minute to rest, and as soon as my eyes fall on a bit of green grass, or a flower growing by the road, or the blue sky, there you are again, popping in between them with your big eyes and your mouth that was made for kisses.  I forget how heartless and light you are, and remember only the times you’ve crept up to me and put your hand on my arm and said, ‘Abel, I’m sorry.’  Most of all I remember the one time you kissed me, Molly.”

“Don’t, Abel,” she said quickly, and her voice broke and died in her throat.

As he drew close to her, she walked faster until her steps changed into a run.

“If you only knew me as I am, you wouldn’t care so, Abel,” she threw back at him.

“I don’t believe you know yourself as you are, Molly,” he answered.  “It’s not you that leads men on to make love to you and then throws them over—­as you have thrown me—­as you will throw Mr. Mullen.”  His tone grew suddenly stern.  “You don’t love Mr. Mullen, and you know it,” he added.  “If you love any man on earth to-day, you love me.”

At his first change from tenderness to accusation, her face hardened and her voice returned to her control.

“What right have you to judge me, Abel Revercomb?” she asked angrily.  “I’ve had one sermon preached at me to-day, and I’ll not listen to another.”

“You know I’m not preaching at you, Molly, but I’m a man of flesh and blood, not of straw.  How can I have patience?”

“I never asked you to have patience, did I?”

“No, and I don’t believe you want it.  If I’d catch hold of you and shake you, you’d probably like me better.”

“It’s just as well that you don’t try it to see how I’ll take it.”

“Oh, I shan’t try it.  I’ll go on still believing in you against yourself, like the born fool I am.”

“You may believe in me or not just as you please—­but it isn’t my fault if you won’t go off and marry Judy Hatch, as I have begged you to.  She’s everything on earth that Mr. Mullen preached about to-day in his sermon.”

“Hang Judy Hatch!  You are bent on starting a quarrel with me, that is the trouble.  As soon as you mentioned Jonathan Gay I knew what you were in for.”

“As if I couldn’t say a man was good looking without putting you into a rage.”

“I’m not in a rage, but I hate a flirt.  Every sensible man does.”

“Judy Hatch isn’t a flirt.”

“Leave Judy Hatch out of it—­though I’ve more than half a mind to walk off and ask her to marry me.”

“That’s just what I’ve advised you to do for the last six months, isn’t it?”

“Ah, no, you haven’t, Molly, no, you haven’t—­and you’d be just as sorry as I the minute after I had done it.  You’ve got some small foolish childish notions in your head about hating men—­but you’re much nearer loving me than hating me at this moment, and that’s why you’re afraid!”