She sent a mute, tremulous question to Emil. His eyes were rivetted on the ground. A powerful struggle was taking place within him. A desire for love had flamed in his heart and, with his lips on hers, for one brief fiery instant he had tasted the sweetness of his power over her. None the less, what he now experienced was an intolerable sense of shame. It set the seal of dignity on his ardour, if she had but understood. But she totally misread him. Pride sent up its secret cry: Perhaps he regretted the kiss, perhaps he had no right to kiss her? "Want to come along?" urged Zarah. "I've been hauling sod and the cart is some muddied, but if yer'e keerful gittin' in, ye won't hurt yer dress none." Rachel suddenly signified her assent. Emil raised his head in a singular and wild fashion. He made an imploring gesture. But it was too late. Under cover of a manner of perfect nonchalance she rose to the supposed situation. Haughtily, under his fiercely-miserable eyes and the curious eyes of the old man, she proceeded to the cart. Emil strode forward. He looked passionate. But she ignored his proffered hand and accepted Zarah's assistance into the cart. Once perched on the high seat, she nodded proudly in the direction of him whom she had so lately kissed. Like many another woman if she could have erased the tender incident from the scroll of her days, if she even could have told herself with honesty that Emil had been the only moved one, she would willingly have given half her life. "But I kissed him back--I did! I did! and there's no use pretending otherwise," she confessed in helpless stony abasement. And throughout the night, in intervals of sleeplessness, she continued to sigh because of the torturing memory. CHAPTER XI AT THE OLD BURYING POINT By the next morning the incident just recorded had taken on to Rachel a somewhat different tinge. Her sense of humiliation had so far abated as to admit of her entertaining a feeling of pity for Emil. He certainly had appeared a disconsolate and astounded figure as he stood there gazing after her as she drove away. She wished now that she had not left so precipitately, or, at least, that she had not declined his proffered assistance when mounting into the cart. By an altered reasoning the apology which had offended her yesterday, now gratified her. As a gentleman who had been guilty of the grave misdemeanour of kissing a lady, he could not have acted differently; for she now thrust the entire blame of the incident on his masculine shoulders. "It certainly was his fault in the first place," she argued. And, having shifted the ground of resentment from the apology for the kiss to the kiss itself, she resolved to forgive the wrong-doer.