"It was mean of you to slip upon me as you did," she said. Then she turned the scorn of her eyes on him and coolly looked him over, the weak face, the boyish, half funny smile, the cynical eyes,--trying to be a man of the world and too weak to know what it all meant. The Conway spirit had come to her--it always did in a critical moment. She no longer blushed or even feared him. "How, how," she said slowly and looking him steadily over, "did I ever love such a thing as you?" He moved up closer. "You will have to kiss me for that," he said angrily. "I've kissed you so often I know just how to do it," and he made an attempt to throw his arms around her. She sprang away from him into the spring branch, standing knee deep in the water and among the water-cresses. He arose hot with insolence: "Oh, you think you are too good for me now--now that the Gov'nor has set his heart on you. Damn him--you were mine before you were his. He may have you, but he will take you with Cassius' kisses on your lips." He sprang forward, reached over the rock and seized her by the arm. But she jerked away from him and sprang back into the deeper water of the spring. She did not scream, but it seemed that her heart would burst with shame and anger. She thought of Ophelia, and as she looked down into the water she wiped away indifferently and silently the cool drops which had splashed up into her face, and she wondered if she might not be able to drop down flat and drown herself there, and thus end it all. He had come to the edge of the rock and stood leering drunkenly down on her. "I love you," he laughed ironically. "I hate you," she said, looking up steadily into his eyes and moving back out of his reach. The water had wet her dress, and she stooped and dipped some of it up and bathed her hot cheeks. "I'll kiss you if I have to wade into that spring." "If I had a brother,--oh, if I even had a father," she said, looking at him with a flash of Conway fire in her eyes--"and you did--you would not live till morning--you know you wouldn't." She stood now knee-deep in water. Above her the half-drunken boy, standing on the rock which projected into the spring, emboldened with drink and maddened by the thought that she had so easily given him up, had reached out and seized her around the neck. He was rough, and it choked her as he drew her to him. She screamed for the first time--for she thought she heard hoof beats coming down the road; then she heard a horseman clear the low fence and spur into the spring branch. The water from the horse's feet splashed over her. She remembered it only faintly--the big glasses--the old straw hat,--the leathern bag of samples around his shoulders. "Most unusual," she heard him say, with more calmness it seemed to Helen than ever: "Quite unusual--insultingly so!" Instinctively she held up her arms and he stooped in the saddle and lifted her up and set her on the stone curbing on the side farthest from Harry Travis.