"I _did_ love him. God knows I loved him!" Virginia cried. "I loved him with every bit of my soul and body. I’ve loved him, worshipped him, adored him ever since I was a child and he was so good to me. He was the noblest man that ever lived, and now a dirty, sneaking coward has slipped up on him and shot him down in cold blood. If I ever meet that man, as God is my Judge, I’ll—" With a sob that was almost a shriek Virginia sank to the door-step and lay there, quivering convulsively. A vast change swept over Ann Boyd. Her big face filled with the still blood of deep emotion. She heaved a sigh, and, turning towards the interior of the room, she said, huskily: "Come on, Luke; don’t tease the poor little thing. I wouldn’t have carried it so far if I could have got it out of her any other way. She’s yours, dear boy—heart, soul, and body." Hearing these words, Virginia raised her head in wonder, just as Luke King emerged from the house. He bent over her, and tenderly raised her up. He was drawing her closer to him, his fine face aflame with tender passion, when Virginia held him firmly from her. "Don’t! don’t!" she said. "If you knew—" "I’ve told him everything, Virginia," Ann broke in. "I had to. I couldn’t see my dear boy suffering like he was, when—" "You know—" Virginia began, aghast, "you know—" "About you and Chester?" King said, with a light laugh. "Yes, I know all about it, and it made me think you the grandest, most self-sacrificing little girl in all the world. So you thought I was dead? That was all gossip. It was only a quarrel that amounted to nothing. I understand, now that he is sober, that Chester is heartily ashamed of himself." Half an hour afterwards Ann stood at the gate and saw them walking together towards Virginia’s home. She watched them till they were lost from her sight in the dusk, then she went back into the house. She stood over the low fire for a moment, then said: "I won’t get any supper ready. I couldn’t eat a bite. Meat and bread couldn’t shove this lump out of my throat. It’s pretty, pretty, pretty to see those two together that way. I believe they have got the sort of thing the Almighty really meant love to be. I know _I_ never got that kind, though, as a girl, I dreamt of nothing else—nothing from morning till night but that one thing, and yet here I am this way—_this way_!" XLII The next morning the weather was as balmy as spring. Ann had taken all the coverings from her beds and hung them along the fence to catch the purifying rays of the sun. Her rag-carpet was stretched out on the ground ready to be beaten. She was occupied in sweeping the bare floor of her sitting-room when a shadow fell across the threshold. Looking up, she saw a tall, lean man, very ill-clad, his tattered hat in hand, his shoes broken at the toes and showing the wearer’s bare feet. "It’s me, Ann," Boyd said. "I couldn’t stay away any longer. I hope you won’t drive me off, anyway, before I’ve got out what I come to say."