“The Baxter business is pretty near wound up at last,” he said, as he lighted his pipe.  “Peter has got his lawsuits settled and has hushed up the talk about swindling, somehow.  Trust him for slipping out of a scrape clean and clever.  He don’t seem to worry any, but Lige looks like a walking skeleton.  Some folks pity him, but I say he should have kept the run of things better and not have trusted everything to Peter.  I hear he’s going out West in the Spring, to take up land in Alberta and try his hand at farming.  Best thing he can do, I guess.  Folks hereabouts have had enough of the Baxter breed.  Newbridge will be well rid of them.”

Sara, who had been sitting in the dark corner by the stove, suddenly stood up, letting the black cat slip from her lap to the floor.  Mrs. Eben glanced at her apprehensively, for she was afraid the girl was going to break out in a tirade against the complacent Harmon.

But Sara only walked fiercely out of the kitchen, with a sound as if she were struggling for breath.  In the hall she snatched a scarf from the wall, flung open the front door, and rushed down the lane in the chill, pure air of the autumn twilight.  Her heart was throbbing with the pity she always felt for bruised and baited creatures.

On and on she went heedlessly, intent only on walking away her pain, over gray, brooding fields and winding slopes, and along the skirts of ruinous, dusky pine woods, curtained with fine spun purple gloom.  Her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sere ferns, and the moist night wind, loosed from wild places far away, blew her hair about her face.

At last she came to a little rustic gate, leading into a shadowy wood-lane.  The gate was bound with willow withes, and, as Sara fumbled vainly at them with her chilled hands, a man’s firm step came up behind her, and Lige Baxter’s hand closed over her’s.

“Oh, Lige!” she said, with something like a sob.

He opened the gate and drew her through.  She left her hand in his, as they walked through the lane where lissome boughs of young saplings flicked against their heads, and the air was wildly sweet with the woodsy odors.

“It’s a long while since I’ve seen you, Lige,” Sara said at last.

Lige looked wistfully down at her through the gloom.

“Yes, it seems very long to me, Sara.  But I didn’t think you’d care to see me, after what you said last spring.  And you know things have been going against me.  People have said hard things.  I’ve been unfortunate, Sara, and may be too easy-going, but I’ve been honest.  Don’t believe folks if they tell you I wasn’t.”

“Indeed, I never did—­not for a minute!” fired Sara.

“I’m glad of that.  I’m going away, later on.  I felt bad enough when you refused to marry me, Sara; but it’s well that you didn’t.  I’m man enough to be thankful my troubles don’t fall on you.”

Sara stopped and turned to him.  Beyond them the lane opened into a field and a clear lake of crocus sky cast a dim light into the shadow where they stood.  Above it was a new moon, like a gleaming silver scimitar.  Sara saw it was over her left shoulder, and she saw Lige’s face above her, tender and troubled.