“Natie, tell me something.” The girl’s voice was soft. Her face was averted. She picked aimlessly at one of his shirt buttons. “Is that why you’ve dodged running away and getting married up to now? Because you’ve been afraid your dad would have our marriage annulled? Because you weren’t of age, maybe?” “Yes, Carrie. That’s—the—reason.” A long silence ensued. The girl’s weeping had ceased. The night and the world were very quiet, excepting for a light hot wind which was blowing over the rushes in the vanguard of a shower. Some of the rushes brushed eerily against the box-shop walls. The old building gave off queer creakings and night noises upstairs. A mouse nibbled at something which rattled in a far corner. “Oh, Carrie!” The boy drew a thick poignant sigh. The girl turned her pale face up to his for a kiss. She got it. Both sighed. She nestled close. The clock ticked—ticked—ticked—— Suddenly the boy sensed that the girl was trembling. She raised her free hand and smoothed his hair for a moment. Then gradually she dropped it—dropped it down to her own face—held it across her eyes. “Nathan,” she whispered softly. “Yes, Carrie!” The girl drew a quick breath—with an effort. She placed her lips close to her lover’s ear and whispered. Young Nat Forge, “incorrigible son,” sat with the girl he loved at nineteen,—sat and held her close. And his throbbing eyes stared across fields of romance, down into valleys of _verboten_ Avalon where acacia trees grew too thickly at a moment for passage through. It was a woman who came to the first man in the Garden. She carried fruit of the knowledge-tree of good and evil and bade him eat. Yet perchance she loved him no less on that account. V It was a quarter to three. The storm had rolled and clacked above the sleeping town and countryside. The office had been lighted by swift and vivid whips of electric violence. The deluge of nocturnal rain had washed the earth cool and pure again. Steadily in a corner trough outside, an eaves spout emptied with a singing sound,—even as the deserted streets ran mud and rivulets. The girl still lay in Nathan’s arms. She had not moved. Neither had moved. The boy’s muscles ached. The air was horribly stuffy, almost sickish. Morning would come now—was coming—swiftly. “Carrie,” said the boy huskily, “there’s a lot we owe to ourselves—to our own—happiness! In fourteen months I’ll be of age. Fourteen months can be a long, long time—or awful, awful short. Suppose, dear, you do as your grandfather wishes—go back to Ohio. Stay there—as best you can. Live as I’ll be living—for the day I’m twenty-one. On that day you and I’ll be married. _That’s_ how much I love you, dear!” The girl sensed rebuke in his pronouncement. Her face burned. Unconsciously she shrank away. She wholly lacked the capacity to appreciate the depth of the lad’s great affection or the worth of his soul thereby disclosed. The lad went on quickly: