"I know one thing that I'm going to do--I am going to buy the old house and a narrow strip of land--the path and the spring. That's all I want--the house, the path and the spring, with just a little strip running a short distance down the brook where the moss is so thick. I have the promise of money from Perdue, and I think that I can borrow some of Conkwright. Yes, I must have the house and the path and the spring and the strip of moss-land that lies along the branch. It will be merely a poetic possession, but such possessions are the richest to one who has a soul; and no one with a soul will bid against me. It is a mean man that would bid against a sentiment." "You must be nearly worn out," she said, when for some distance we had walked in silence. "I may be, but I don't know it yet. And so long as I don't know it, why, of course, I don't care." For a long time we said nothing. Her hand was on my arm, but I scarcely felt its weight, except when we came upon places where the road was rough; and I wished that the way were rougher, that I might feel her dependence upon me. Once she stepped into a deep rut, and I caught her about the waist, but when I had lifted her out, she gently released herself. She said that the road was rougher than she had ever before found it, and I was ready to swear that it was the most delightful highway that my feet had trod; indeed, I did swear it, but she warned me not to use such strong language when I meant to convey but a weak compliment. "Let us walk faster," she said. "It is away past midnight. I do believe it's nearly day. Can you see your watch?" "Yes, but I can't see the time." "Nobody can see time, Mr. Teacher of Children." "But I could not tell the time even if I were to hold the lantern to the watch." "Oh, of course you could. Why do you talk that way?" "I am moved to talk that way because I know that the watch, being in sympathy with me, refuses to record time when I am with you--it frightens off the minutes in an ecstasy." "Nonsense, Mr. Hawes. I do believe daylight is coming. What a night we have passed, and here I am unable to realize it, and mother is heart-broken over our disgrace. But I suppose it will fall upon me and crush me when we have gone away. My brother sentenced to the penitentiary! To myself I have repeated these words over and over and yet they don't strike me." "Perhaps it is because your mind is on some one else," I replied, with a return of my feeling of bitterness. With a pressure gentle and yet forgetful her hand had been resting on my arm, but in an instant the pressure was gone like a bird fluttering from a bough, and out in the road she was walking alone. "I earnestly beg your pardon. I scarcely knew what I was saying. Won't you please take my arm?" "To be compelled to drop it again before we have gone a hundred yards?"