"I won't meet you outside. It would double the risk for the two of us to try to get into the house together. Listen! Make your way over the fields without going near the road. Give the negro cabin a wide berth. When you are abreast of the big house strike for the evergreen hedge that bounds that side of the grounds. You'll find a gap in it, broken by the wind. You know how the porch runs around three sides of the main building. At the end of the porch on that side there's a rough clump of mock orange bushes. Behind the bushes you'll find a way into the cellar. That's how I go and come. I'll be waiting for you in the cellar. Or if I'm not there wait till I come." "Oh Pen, I hate skulking!" "I love it!" said Pen. "If I know I'm in the right. It's an adventure!" They came to the tree where they had left the grass bag hanging. "Well..." began Pen. Don swung her around inside his arm. "Oh my Pen, how can I let you go to-night?" he groaned. "Ah, don't kiss me any more," she pleaded. "I don't want to be drowned again. I want to know I'm loving you." "But I must before I lose you!" She laid restraining hands on his arms. "Listen, dear," she murmured. "There's something I want to tell you. From the very bottom of my heart it comes. I love you so much you can make me your slave if you want. But you should have pity on me. You should help me to keep myself separate. For both our sakes. If sometimes I seem perverse and tricksy to you it is only because of the desperate need I have to keep something of myself back. If I become swallowed up in you as most women do in their men you'll tire of me. I'll lose my flavor for you. Let me give myself to you a mouthful at a time. Don't swallow me whole!" He but dimly understood her. "I'll try!" he said between a laugh and a groan. "You funny darling child! ... But how can I keep from kissing you?" "I don't want you always to keep from it," Pen said. CHAPTER VII THE TRIP TO TOWN On Tuesday morning Pen, dressed for town, was breakfasting with her father in the high-ceilinged, shabby dining-room. The elder Pendleton pushed his plate from him and with an ostentatiously careless air, took a packet of crisp bills from his breast pocket and commenced to count them. It was hard to get any change out of Pen, but this time she laid down her fork and frankly stared. "Where did you get it?" she demanded. Pendleton exulted in the effect he was creating. He had rehearsed an answer to the inevitable question. "I didn't steal it, my dear." Pen refused to be diverted. "Where did you get it?" "I sold some lots." "To Mr. Riever?" "None other." "Oh, how could you?" she cried involuntarily. "And why not, I should like to know?" he demanded, up in arms immediately. Clearly his conscience was bad, though he appeared to have reason on his side. Pen was helplessly silent.