A voice was crying out behind him, but he never heeded. There were light, hurrying steps after him, and a soft flutter of girlish skirts, but he never looked away from his own self until Rebecca touched his arm. Then he looked around with a start and a great blush, and jerked his arm away. But Rebecca followed him up quite boldly, and caught his arm again, and looked up in his face. "Don't you feel bad," said she; "don't you feel bad. You aren't to blame." "Isn't he my father?" "You aren't to blame for that." "Disgrace comes without blame," said William, and he moved on. Rebecca kept close to his side, clinging to his arm. "It's your father's way," said she. "He's honest, anyway. Nobody can say he isn't honest." "It depends upon what you call honest," William said, bitterly. "You'd better run back, Rebecca. You don't want them to think you're going with me, and they will. I'm disgraced, and so is Rose. You'd better run back." Rebecca stopped, and he did also. She looked up in his face; her mouth was quivering with a kind of helpless shame, but her eyes were full of womanly courage and steadfastness. "William," said she, "I ran away in the face and eyes of them all to comfort you. They saw me, and they can see me now, but I don't care. And I don't care if you see me; I always have cared, but I don't now. I have always been terribly afraid lest you should think I was running after you, but I ain't afraid now. Don't you feel bad, William. That's all I care about. Don't you feel bad; nobody is going to think any less of you. I don't; I think more." William looked down at her; there was a hesitating appeal in his face, as in that of a hurt child. Suddenly Rebecca raised both her arms and put them around his neck; he leaned his cheek down against her soft hair. "Poor William," she whispered, as if he had been her child instead of her lover. A girl in the merry party speeding along at the foot of the hill glanced around just then; she turned again, blushing hotly, and touched a girl near her, who also glanced around. Then their two blushing faces confronted each other with significant half-shamed smiles of innocent young girlhood. They locked arms, and whispered as they went on. "Did you see?" "Yes." "His head?" "Yes." "Her arms?" "Yes." Neither had ever had a lover. But the two lovers at the top of the hill paid no heed. The party were all out of sight when they went slowly down in the gathering twilight. William left Rebecca when they came opposite her house. Chapter VIII When Rebecca entered the house, her mother was standing over the stove, making milk-toast for supper. The boiling milk steamed up fiercely in her face. "What makes you so long behind the others?" she demanded, without turning, stirring the milk as she spoke.