“I did not just think of it. You think I am too sudden and impulsive. I thought of you all the time I was gone. I have loved you ever since I knew you. How can anybody help loving you? You meant Bensalem to me more than Roger and Marion did. I have been afraid somebody would guess. I was afraid somebody would keep you away from me. Judith, don’t you care for me, at all?” “Yes, John; but not like _that_. I couldn’t promise that. I never thought you cared like that.” “How did you think I cared?” he asked, passionately; “in a grandfatherly way like Roger?” “I do not know,” she answered sadly; “you were so good to me, and I liked you. I didn’t think.” “Will you think now?” he asked, gently. “Will you think and tell me?” “When?” “As soon as you know yourself. I will wait years and years.” “Yes, I will tell you as soon as I know myself,” she promised. “Then I will wait. You are worth waiting for.” “John, ought I to tell Marion?” “No. Do not tell anybody. It is my secret. You haven’t any secret. Nobody need ever know, I will never be pitied.” Judith pitied him then. “I am not bound in any way. I haven’t promised, John.” “No; you haven’t,” he said, touched by the sorrow in her face. “I am sorry to trouble you so; but I had to say it. I came to Bensalem to say it.” “Are you sorry you came?” “No; I had to have it out. Perhaps it will make a man of me. Something will have to. A man needs some kind of a fight.” Judith thought that it was not only his “fight.” “I am going home; I can’t stay here. I’ll tell Roger I decided not to stay over Sunday. I don’t care what he thinks. We talked till twelve o’clock last night. I know what he thinks. I’ll walk to Dunellen to the train, I’d like to start and walk around the world.” “John.” Judith’s eyes were filled with tears. “Don’t feel like that,” he answered, roughly; “it’s bad enough for me to feel for myself without feeling for you. I have always thought you cared.” “I _do_ care.” “That’s no way to care.” He walked off, not turning for her low word of farewell. She would have kept him had she dared. XXV. COUSIN DON. “If we are ever in doubt what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow we had done.” —Sir John Lubbuck. The first day of September, late in the afternoon, Judith stood over the kitchen stove making beef-tea for Aunt Rody. The weekly letters from Don had failed—failed for three weeks; but twice before in five years had she missed a letter. At the step behind her she did not raise her eyes; the beef-tea was ready to strain; at this moment she had no interest in the world but that beef-tea. “Judith, are you ready for news?” asked Roger. “Good news?” she asked, forgetting her beef-tea and turning towards him, radiant. “That depends upon how you take it.”