“The Lord be good to me!” he broke out, all his long-pent passion of dreams rushing to his lips, now that the barrier fell. “Don't you see it is because I can't bear to let you go? I hoped to get away without saying it. I want to be alone. I want to be with myself and try to realize. I didn't want to make a babbling idiot of myself--but I am! It is because I don't want another second of your sweetness to leave an added pain when you've gone. It is because I don't want to hear your voice again, to have it haunt me in the loneliness you will leave--but it's useless, useless! I shall hear it always, just as I shall always see your face, just as I have heard your voice and seen your face these seven years--ever since I first saw you, a child at Winter Harbor. I forgot for a while; I thought it was a girl I had made up out of my own heart, but it was you--you always! The impression I thought nothing of at the time, just the merest touch on my heart, light as it was, grew and grew deeper until it was there forever. You've known me twenty-four hours, and I understand what you think of me for speaking to you like this. If I had known you for years and had waited and had the right to speak and keep your respect, what have I to offer you? I, couldn't even take care of you if you went mad as I and listened. I've no excuse for this raving. Yes, I have!” He saw her in another second of lightning, a sudden, bright one. Her back was turned to him; she had taken a few startled steps from him. “Ah,” he cried, “you are glad enough, now, to see me go! I knew it. I wanted to spare myself that. I tried not to be a hysterical fool in your eyes.” He turned aside and his head fell on his breast. “God help me,” he said, “what will this place be to me now?” The breeze had risen; it gathered force; it was a chill wind, and there rose a wailing on the prairie. Drops of rain began to fall. “You will not think a question implied in this,” he said more composedly, and with an unhappy laugh at himself. “I believe you will not think me capable of asking you if you care----” “No,” she answered; “I--I do not love you.” “Ah! Was it a question, after all? I--you read me better than I do, perhaps--but if I asked, I knew the answer.” She made as if to speak again, but words refused her. After a moment, “Good-by,” he said, very steadily. “I thank you for the charity that has given me this little time with you--it will always be--precious to me--I shall always be your servant.” His steadiness did not carry him to the end of his sentence. “Good-by.” She started toward him and stopped, without his seeing her. She answered nothing; but stretched out her hand to him and then let it fall quickly. “Good-by,” he said again. “I shall go out the orchard gate. Please tell them good-night for me. Won't you speak to me? Good-by.”