Julie looked at her out of still eyes. How had she come to do it? How could she ever explain to Mrs. Anderson how it had happened? How could she explain the long repression of soul that had led her and Timothy Bixby to blow the lid off so violently at last? There were too many fine shades of meaning in it for her ever to make the other understand. In truth, she could hardly understand it herself. What had happened was down so deep in the elemental things of life that she could not put it into words. “I don’t think I could possibly tell you why we did it,” she answered at length. “We cared for each other, but--but we parted as soon as we saw it was wrong--that what we did was hurting other folks.” “You parted as soon as you knew it was wrong? You mean to say you didn’t know right from the first that it was wrong to go off with another woman’s husband--an’ him a draft dodger, too? Oh, you needn’t come back to Hart’s Run an’ tell a tale like _that_, an’ expect decent folks to go right along an’ treat you like nothing had happened. They won’t do it, I tell you!” “I don’t expect them to,” Julie said. “Well, it’s lucky you don’t. Folks won’t stand for any such carryings on. You’ll be put out of the church. Brother Seabrook’ll put you right out--I know he will. I don’t see to save me how you dared to come back.” “Why, I _had_ to come back here,” Julie cried. “It’s my home--it’s where I belong. Why, I’m rooted here.” “Well, folks ain’t goin’ to have one thing to do with you, I tell you! I don’t know in my soul what I’m doin’ here right this minute! And other folks ain’t goin’ to have _nothing_ to do with you.” “No, I reckon not,” Julie answered, “but here’s where I belong just the same.” She looked away out of the window and rested her eyes on the sweep of autumn hills surrounding the village--she who had been for weeks in the city, and a flat country. “Maybe you’re right, an’ folks won’t have anything more to do with me--but--but--the mountains are here, an’ the sun’ll rise an’ set, an’ the snow come in the winter, an’ the sap run in spring. It’s where I belong.” “_Julie Rose!_ Upon my word I just b’lieve you’ve lost your mind!” the other broke in. “I’ve found my soul,” Julie interposed beneath her breath. “There you set, nursing that nasty cat, an’ not carin’ one thing what people think.” “I care what God thinks.” “Well--you better be thinking about your sin then,” Mrs. Anderson retorted. “My sin,” Julie repeated, and suddenly she saw an inward picture of old Miss Fogg’s gray head upon the floor. “But--but God forgives sins!” she cried poignantly. “He does forgive them. ‘A broken and a contrite heart He will not despise’--the Bible says so!” “That’s all right about the Bible,” Mrs. Anderson cried savagely. “But you ain’t livin’ in the Bible; you’re livin’ right here in Hart’s Run. An’ I tell you Hart’s Run folks ain’t goin’ to stand for this: they’ll put you out of the church--you see if they don’t.”