The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at the corner. Molly Brownwell's heart throbbed as they met, and she thought of the rising moon, and in an instant her brain was afire with a hope that shamed her. Three could not walk abreast on the narrow sidewalk up the hill, and when she heard Hendricks say after the group had parleyed a moment, "Well, Jake, good night; I'll go on home with the colonel," she managed the pairing off so that the young man fell to her, and the colonel and Mrs. Culpepper walked before the younger people, and they all talked together. But at Lincoln Avenue, the younger people disconnected themselves from the talk of the elders, and finally lagged a few feet behind. When they reached the gate the colonel called back, "Better come in and visit a minute, Bob," and Molly added, "Yes, Bob, it's early yet." But what she said with her voice did not decide the matter for him. It was her eyes. And what he said with his voice is immaterial--it was what his eyes replied that the woman caught. What he said was, "Well, just for a minute, Colonel," and the party walked up the steps of the veranda, and Bob and Molly and the colonel sat down. Mrs. Culpepper stood for a moment and then said, "Well, Bob, you must excuse me--I forgot to set my sponge, and there isn't a bit of bread in the house for Sunday." Whereupon she left them, and when the colonel had talked himself out he left them, and when the two were alone there came an awkward silence. In the years they had been apart a thousand things had stirred in their hearts to say at this time, yet all their voices spoke was, "Well, Molly?" and "Well, Bob?" The moon was in their faces as it shone through the elm at the gate. The man turned his chair so that he could look at her, and after satisfying his eyes he broke the silence with, "Seven years." And she returned, "Seven years the thirteenth of April." The man played a tune with his fingers and a foot and said nothing more. The woman finally spoke. "Did you know it was the thirteenth?" "Yes," he replied, "father died the ninth. I have often counted it up." He added shortly after: "It's a long time--seven years! My! but it has been a long time!" "I have wondered if you have thought so," a pause, "too!" Their hearts were beating too fast for thoughts to come coherently. The fever of madness was upon them, and numbed their wills so that they could not reach beneath the surface of their consciousnesses to find words for their emotions. Then also there was in each a deadening, flaming sense of guilt. Shame is a dumb passion, and these two, who in the fastnesses of a thousand nights had told themselves that what they sought was good and holy, now found in each other's actual presence a gripping at the tongue's root that held them dumb. "Yes, I--" the man mumbled, "yes, I--I fancied you understood that well enough."