She looked at him from under her lashes, half smiled, then said: "I don’t recollect anything perticular." "I do," he muttered softly, and stepped across the spring-run to her side. "You said—" "Oh, don’t tell me!—I don’t mean anything I say!" she hastily cried. His face clouded with jealous anger again; he laid his hand on her shoulder. "You’ll—make me do somethin’ turrible, Armindy, if you don’t mind. I love you; don’t—don’t—treat me like a dog, flingin’ crumbs to me one day, an’ whippin’ me off the next." She pushed away his hand, for, with all her coquetries, no man dared take any liberties with her, and stepped beyond his reach. "I ain’t done nuthin’ to you, Eph’um Hurd. I—" "You have!" he cried, stamping his feet; "you’ve made me love you, tell I don’t feel as I could live without you; you let me think that you loved—" "Law! what’s the use o’ listenin’ to a girl’s foolishness? Maybe I love you; an’, ag’in, maybe I love ’Lishy Cole an’ a dozen others. You’re too set on havin’ your own way," she exclaimed with a loud laugh. Somebody called to her from the fence. "That’s ’Lishy, now." "An’ you’re goin’ to him?" said Ephraim with a pale face. "Yes, I’m goin’ to him. He don’t bemean me," with a pretense of being aggrieved, but with mocking laughter in her eyes. She ran up to the fence, and he heard her talking to Elisha about the flowers in her hair. The party was over. Ephraim Hurd could scarcely contain the violence of his rage when Armindy refused his company home to accept Elisha Cole’s. And how hurt he felt, as well as angry! The slight cut to his soul. He watched them as they went away with a party of the neighbors; he listened to their conversation and loud laughter, until the maddening sound of it was lost in the distance; then he mounted his mule and rode swiftly through the Cove down toward the town on the banks of the Cartecay River, where revenue-officers were stationed. A fierce, irresistible temptation had assailed—had conquered him. If he could not have love, he could have revenge. The revenue-men would be glad to know where Elisha Cole concealed his distillery; they would be better pleased to get Elisha himself. Just a hint, scrawled and unsigned, would be sufficient for them, and no one need know who had furnished the information.