"Virginia"—he tried to assume a light laugh—"this whole thing has turned your head. You will feel differently about it later when your mother comes back sound and well. Ann Boyd is not going to tell what took place, and—" "And you and I will have a secret of that nature between us!" she broke in, furiously. "That’s got to blacken my memory, and be always before me! You are going to know _that_ of me when—when, yes, I’ll say it—when another man whose shoes you are unworthy to wipe believes me to be as free from contact with evil as a new-born baby." Chester drew his brows together in sudden suspicion. "You are referring to Luke King!" he snapped out. "Look here, Virginia, don’t make this matter any more serious than it is. I will not have a man like that held up to me as a paragon. I have heard that he used to hang around you when you were little, before he went off and came back so puffed up with his accomplishments, and I understand he has been to see you recently, but I won’t stand his meddling in my affairs." "You needn’t be afraid," Virginia said, with a bitterness he could not fathom. "There is nothing between Luke King and myself—absolutely nothing. You may rest sure that I’d never receive the attentions of a man of his stamp after what has passed between me and a man of your—" She paused. He was now white with rage. His lower lip hung and twitched nervously. "You are a little devil!" he cried. "You know you are driving me crazy. But I will not be thrown over. Do you understand? I am not going to give you up." "I don’t know how you will help yourself," she said, moving back towards the door. "I certainly shall never, of my own free will, see you alone again. What I’ve done, I’ve done, but I don’t intend to have it thrown into my face day after day." "Look here, Virginia," he began, but she had walked erectly into the house and abruptly closed the door. He stood undecided for a moment, and then, crestfallen, he turned away. XXVIII One bright, crisp morning a few days later, after her uncle had ridden his old horse, in clanking, trace-chain harness, off to his field to do some ploughing, Virginia stole out unnoticed and went over to Ann Boyd’s. The door of the farm-house stood open, and in the sitting-room the girl saw Ann seated near a window hemming a sheet. "I see from your face that you’ve had more news," the old woman said, as she smiled in greeting. "Sit down and tell me about it. I’m on this job and want to get through with it before I put it down." "I got a letter this morning," Virginia complied, "from a woman down there who said she was my mother’s nurse. The operation was very successful, and she is doing remarkably well. The surgeon says she will have no more trouble with her affliction. It was only on the surface and was taken just in time." "Ah, just in time!" Ann held the sheet in her tense hands for a moment, and then crushed it into her capacious lap. "Then _she’s_ all right."