"Pshaw!" Miss Sally-Lou sniffed. "Dolly will never give Warren a second thought--not _now,_ nohow. She's got 'er sights up, an' she'll never lower 'em ag'in." Webb, almost outwitted, stood on the edge of the porch and watched the spinster trip down the walk. She glanced over her shoulder coquettishly. "You are losin' all your gal_lant_ ways, Mr. John," she simpered. "You don't even open the gate for visitin' ladies here lately." "I greased that latch t'other day," he answered, laconically. "It works as easy as the trigger of a mouse-trap. I don't know as I ever was a woman's jumpin'rjack. I ain't one o' the fellers that fan flies off'n 'em at meetin'. If they draw flies an' gnats that's the'r lookout, not mine." CHAPTER XIX Alone in her room, Dolly stood at a window, her distraught eyes on the placid fields lying between the house and the mountains. She was still pale. The tips of her fingers clung to the narrow mullions as if for support. She seemed scarcely to breathe. Her beautiful lips were drawn tight; her shapely chin had a piteous quiver. "Oh, that was it!" she moaned. "I understand it now. He was engaged to her all the time, but wouldn't tell me. He got tired of us here and went back to her. I'll never see him again--never, never, never!" The bed, with its snowy coverlet and great downy pillows, invited her. She was about to throw herself upon it, but her pride, pierced to the quick, rebelled. "I sha'n't cry!" she said. "He is marrying for her money. I sha'n't weep over it. He lied to me--to _me!_ He said something was wrong with his business and when that was settled he would write. He was just trifling, passing time away this summer as he did three years ago, and I--I--silly little gump--actually kissed him. I trusted him as I trust--as I _trusted_ God. I even confided father's secret to him. I loved him with my whole soul, and all the time he was comparing me to her." Far across the sunlit meadows on the gradual slope of a rise she saw her father and George cutting and raking hay. How odd it seemed for them to be so calmly working toward the future feeding of mere horses and cattle when to her life itself seemed killed to its germ. There was a step on the stairs. The door was thrown open, and her sister rushed in. "Oh, Dolly!" Ann cried, her begrimed fingers clutching at Dolly's arm, "what does it mean? Is it so? Do you think he really is going to--" "Oh, go away, go away, _please_ go away!" the older pleaded. "Don't talk to me now--not now!"