The pike-gate slammed—­her father was getting home from town.  The buggy coming over the turf made her think what a change a few months had brought to Crittenden and to her; of the ride home with him the previous spring; and what she rarely allowed herself, she thought of the night of their parting and the warm colour came to her cheeks.  He had never sent her a line, of course.  The matter would never be mentioned—­it couldn’t be.  It struck her while she was listening to the coming of the feet on the turf that they were much swifter than her father’s steady-going old buggy horse.  The click was different; and when the buggy, instead of turning toward the stable, came straight for the stiles, her heart quickened and she raised her head.  She heard acutely the creak of the springs as some one stepped to the ground, and then, without waiting to tie his horse, stepped slowly over the stiles.  Unconsciously she rose to her feet, not knowing what to think—­to do.  And then she saw that the man wore a slouch hat, that his coat was off, and that a huge pistol was buckled around him, and she turned for the door in alarm.

“Judith!”

The voice was weak, and she did not know it; but in a moment the light from the lamp in the hallway fell upon a bare-headed, gaunt-featured man in the uniform of a common soldier.

“Judith!”

This time the voice broke a little, and for a moment Judith stood speechless—­still—­unable to believe that the wreck before her was Crittenden.  His face and eyes were on fire—­the fire of fever—­she could not know that; and he was trembling and looked hardly able to stand.

“I’ve come, Judith,” he said.  “I haven’t known what to do, and I’ve come to tell you—­to—­ask——­”

He was searching her face anxiously, and he stopped suddenly and passed one hand across, his eyes, as though he were trying to recall something.  The girl had drawn herself slowly upward until the honeysuckle above her head touched her hair, and her face, that had been so full of aching pity for him that in another moment she must have gone and put her arms about him, took on a sudden, hard quiet; and the long anguish of the summer came out suddenly in her trembling lip and the whiteness of her face.

“To ask for forgiveness,” he might have said; but his instinct swerved him; and—­

“For mercy, Judith,” he would have said, but the look of her face stopped the words in an unheard whisper; and he stooped slowly, feeling carefully for a step, and letting himself weakly down in a way that almost unnerved her again; but he had begun to talk now, quietly and evenly, and without looking up at her.

“I’m not going to stay long.  I’m not going to worry you.  I’ll go away in just a moment; but I had to come; I had to come.  I’ve been a little sick, and I believe I’ve not quite got over the fever yet; but I couldn’t go through it again without seeing you.  I know that, and that’s—­why—­I’ve—­come.  It isn’t the fever.  Oh, no; I’m not sick at all.  I’m very well, thank you——­”