As she started toward the house he stepped quickly in front of her. The shadows deepened round them, and the wind whispered in the corn. The rattle of a wagon descending Listening Hill reached them faintly and Phil lifted her head at the vague, blurred sound. After her brave speech a mood of loneliness swept her heart, and the cheer with which she had lately fortified herself against depression failed to respond to her summons. She had no control over the lives of her mother and father. The one beyond the sea was not more hopelessly remote than the other in his camp by the creek. They and all the others who were near and dear--Amzi, even, and Nan and Rose--seemed strangely beyond her reach. The fields, the woodlands etched darkly against the sky, suddenly became Fred's allies. He was of kin to them; he had confessed in their later talks to a simple spiritual faith born of contact with the earth, the study of its secrets, the pondering of its mysteries. With him there would be peace and security. Her heart ached with tenderness and longing. The qualities her nature lacked he supplied, and love and faith like his were not lightly to be put aside. Fred in the dusk before her took form in her mind as a refuge and hope. He was big and strong and kind; he loved her and it was sweet to be loved by him. He took her hands, that fluttered and became still like two forlorn birds; and then her arms stole round his neck in a tight clasp. "Dear Fred!" she cried, half-sobbing; "don't you ever leave me!" * * * * * A little later, as they walked hand in hand toward the house, he pointed toward the creek. "You see, Phil, about your work, I've thought all that out. I want you to go on with it. I've planned a kind of studio for you over there, in that clump of trees on the edge of the Run. I'm going to build a little bungalow, all glass on the creek side, where you can study and write, while I'm off making the corn grow. And in the evenings we'll go out there and sit and talk. I've thought a lot about that." "But, you goose, that won't be helping you any, the way a farmer's wife has to help her husband. I won't be of any use to you, writing pieces for editors to fire back at me." "They won't send them back; and if they do, I'll punch their heads." "And daddy can live with us, can't he--always, Fred? Where we are will be home for him!"