"Well," said Carrie, with a calm dignity, "he will never come back again. I have sent him away." She felt the man start, and saw his hands tighten on the reins. "Carrie," he said, "you will tell me more if you wish; if not, it doesn't matter. There is another thing I want to say. I have often been sorry for you, but I felt that you would not find it quite so hard some day. That is why I waited--I think very patiently--though it was a little hard on me, too. I thought I knew what you must feel--indeed, you showed it to me--and I was horribly afraid that, if I was too hasty, I might lose you." "And that would have troubled you?" Leland turned again, and his voice was a trifle hoarse. "My dear, I do not understand these things. I have been too busy to worry about my feelings, but I know that, while I only admired you at Barrock-holme, something else that was different soon took hold of me, and kept on growing stronger the more I saw of you. I think it first gripped me hard the night you told me what you thought of me--though why then I don't know. Now I am sure, at least, that it will never let me go." Then, his self-restraint failing him, he slipped an arm about her and held her tightly to him. "Carrie," he said harshly, "it is getting too hard for me. Do you know that now and then something almost drives me into taking you into my arms and crushing you into submission? I could do it now--the touch of you almost maddens me. This can't go on. I have felt lately that you were growing kinder and shrank from me less. After all, I am a man and nothing more. How long do you mean to keep me waiting?" Carrie laughed softly, with a little catch of her breath. "Bend your head a little, Charley," she said, "I have something to tell you." As he did her bidding, she, stretching up a soft, warm arm round his neck, drew his face down to hers. His hand closed convulsively on her waist. "Charley," she said again, "it needn't go on any longer than you wish. I don't want it to. I only want you to love me now." The man laughed almost fiercely in his exultation. For a space she lay crushed and breathless beneath his engirdling arm, with his kisses hot upon her lips. When at last his grasp relaxed, her head, with the big white hat all crushed and crumpled, was still upon his breast. Her cheeks were burning, and her blood ran riot, for she was one who did nothing by half, as she clung to him in an ecstasy of complete and irrevocable surrender. The man broke out into a flood of disjointed, half-coherent, unrestrained words.