His hand shook a little when he lighted a cigarette, and his face, which was burned red from wind and sun, contracted nervously as he talked. It was the wildness in his speech, however, the suppressed excitement which ran in an undercurrent beneath his words, that caused the other to turn sharply and regard him for a moment with gathered brows. "Well, take my advice and don't try that dodge too often," remarked Christopher in a careless tone. "What in the deuce does it matter?" returned Will desperately. "It was the only quiet night I've had for three weeks: I slept like a log straight through until the breakfast-bell. Then I was late, of course, and he threatened to take an hour's time from my day's wages. By the way, he pays me now, you know, just as he does the other labourers." For a time he kept up his rambling complaint, but, breaking off abruptly at last, made some trivial excuse, and started homeward across the fields. Christopher, looking after him, was hardly surprised when he saw him branch off into the shaded lane that led to Sol Peterkin's. There followed a month when the two met only at long intervals, and then with a curious constraint of manner. Sometimes Christopher, stopping on his way to the pasture, would exchange a few words over the rail fence with Will, who lounged on the edge of his grandfather's tobacco crop; but the old intimacy had ceased suddenly to exist, and it was evident that a newer interest had distracted the boy's ardent fancy. It was not until August that the meaning of the change was made clear to Christopher, when, coming one day to a short turn in a little woodland road upon his land, he saw Will and Molly Peterkin sitting side by side on a fallen log. The girl had been crying, and at the sight of Christopher she gave a frightened sob and pulled her blue gingham sunbonnet down over her forehead; but Will, inspired at the instant by some ideal of chivalry, drew her hand through his arm and came out boldly into the road. "You know Molly," he said in a brave voice that was not without pathos, "but you don't know that she has promised to be my wife." Whatever the purpose of the girl's tears, she had need of them no longer, for with an embarrassed little laugh she flushed and dimpled into her pretty smile. "Your wife?" repeated Christopher blankly. "Why, you're no better than two children and deserve to be whipped. If I were in your place, I'd start to catching butterflies, and quit fooling." He passed on laughing merrily; but before the day was over he began to wonder seriously if Will could be really sincere in his intention to marry Molly Peterkin--poor, pretty Molly, whose fame was blown to the four corners of the county. By night the question had come to perplex him in earnest, and it was almost with relief that he heard a familiar rattle on his window-pane as he undressed, and, looking out, saw Will standing in the long grass by the porch.