A few days later, at the breakfast table, Mrs. Staggs remarked that Mrs. McElwin and her daughter were gone on a visit to friends and would be absent several weeks. Lyman did not think to disguise his concern. With an abruptness that made the cups totter in the saucers he shoved himself back from the table and fell into a deep muse. Why should the girl have gone away just at that particular time? Was it a blow aimed at him? He had wanted to tell her something. It was in the nature of a confession, not startling, not, as he now viewed it, beyond a commonplace acknowledgment, and he wondered why he should have suppressed it. He wanted simply to tell her that, at the time when the joking ceremony had been performed, he had looked at her, with his mind reverting to the sick man whose face he had seen that day at the window, and had thought of the charm she could throw upon the gloom-weighted scene should she step into the room. This had come to pass; he had beheld it, and his mind had been sweetened by it; he had walked nearly all the way home with her and had not mentioned it. He had been too talkative as a protector and too silent as a man. And, all day, there was a bitter taste in his mouth, and, at evening, as he sat alone in the office he cut himself with a cynical smile. Warren came in, bright and brusque. "Well, I've just got back from old man Pitt's," said he. "I couldn't wait any longer, so I went. The old man was at work in the field and I went out and told him not to disturb himself. The old lady was weaving a rag carpet, and I told her not to let the loom fall into silence. The girl was churning and I told her to keep at it. Ah, what a picture, that girl at the churn. Her red calico dress was tucked up, and her sleeves were rolled, and her hair had been grabbed in a hurry and fastened with a thorn. She blushed and put her hand to her hair as if she wanted to fix it, but I cried to her not to tamper with it. I said that she might have gold pins, but couldn't improve on that thorn; I swore that the finest hairdresser in the world would spoil it; and she laughed and I saw the inside of her mouth--" "A rose with the bud pinched out," said Lyman. "How did you know? Did you ever see the inside of her mouth? You've hit it all right. Yes, sir, that's what you have. Well, I took hold of the churn dasher and helped her, and she pretended to be afraid that we might turn the churn over, and our hands came together and I felt like throwing up my hat and dancing right there." "Did you find out as to how she stands?" "Lyman, would you believe that I weakened? I put both my hands on her hair and I snatched a kiss from her, but she looked up at me and I weakened; I couldn't ask her. She wasn't scared; she was astonished; and when she looked down, I kissed the back of her neck, standing there in full view of the world, and she shivered as if she was cold, but her face was scarlet."