"At last!" he said gratefully, with his old triumphant habit of carrying out whatever he undertook. He had put out all his strength to get there. He passed the nearest field--the peach trees--the garden--and took the path toward the house. "Where shall I find her?" he thought. "Where can I see her alone?" "Between him and the house stood a building of logs and plaster. It was a single room used for the spinning and the weaving of which she had charge. Many a time he had lain on the great oaken chest into which the homespun cloth was stored while she sat by her spinning-wheel; many a talk they had had there together, many a parting; and many a Saturday twilight he had put his arms around her there and turned away for his lonely walk to town, planning their future. "If she should only be in the weaving-room!" He stepped softly to the door and looked in. She was there-- standing near the middle of the room with her face turned from him. The work of the day was done. On one side were the spinning-wheels, farther on a loom; before her a table on which the cloth was piled ready to be folded away; on the other the great open chest into which she was about to store it. She had paused in revery, her hands clasped behind her head. At the sight of her and with the remembrance of how he had misjudged and mistreated her--most of all swept on by some lingering flood of the old tenderness--he stepped forward put his arms softly around her, drew her closely to him, and buried his check against hers: "Amy!" he murmured, his voice quivering his whole body trembling, his heart knocking against his ribs like a stone. She struggled out of his arms with a cry and recognizing him, drew her figure up to its full height. Her eyes filled with passion, cold and resentful. He made a gesture. "Wait!" he cried. "Listen." He laid bare everything--from his finding of the bundle to the evening of the ball. He was standing by the doorway. A small window in the opposite wall of the low room opened toward the West. Through this a crimson light fell upon his face revealing its pallor, its storm, its struggle for calmness. She stood a few yards off with her face in shadow. As she had stepped backward, one of her hands had struck against her spinning-wheel and now rested on it; with the other she had caught the edge of the table. From the spinning-wheel a thread of flax trailed to the ground; on the table lay a pair of iron shears.