"_Like_ it!" The uttermost of scorn was in her voice. "I hate, hate, hate it! I just live to get out into the great world, where I feel that I belong. But I must have money first. And I'm going to study, and I'm going to make myself somebody. I wasn't born for this." And she waved her hand with a sweep that took in all the backwoods world. "I'm getting out of it. It would drive me mad. Oh, I sometimes think it has already driven me half mad." Her tense voice trailed off wearily, and she sat down again--this time further away. Blackstock sat quite still for a time. At last he said gently: "I do understand ye now, Mary." "You _don't_," interrupted Mary. "I felt, all along, I was somehow not good enough for you." "You're a million miles _too_ good for me," she interrupted again, energetically. "But," he went on without heeding the protest, "I hoped, somehow, that I might be able to make you happy. An' that's what I want, more'n anything else in the world. All I have is at your feet, Mary, an' I could make' it more in time. But I'm not a big enough man for you. I'm all yours--an' always will be--but I can't make myself no more than I am." "Yes, you could, Tug Blackstock," she cried. "Real men are scarce, in the great world and everywhere. You could make yourself a master anywhere--if only you would tear yourself loose from here." He sprang up, and his arms went out as if to seize her. But, with an effort, he checked himself, and dropped them stiffly to his side. "I'm too old to change my spots, Mary," said he. "I'm stamped for good an' all. I am some good here. I'd be no good there. An' I won't never resk bein' a drag on yer plans." "You could--you could!" urged Mary almost desperately. But he turned away, with his lips set hard, not daring to look at her. "Ef ever ye git tired of it all out there, an' yer own kind calls ye back--as it will, bein' in yer blood--I'll be waitin' for ye, Mary, whatever happens." He strode off quickly up the shore. The girl stared after, him till he was quite out of sight, then buried her face in the fur of Jim, who had willingly obeyed a sign from his master and remained at her side. "Oh, my dear, if only you could have dared," she murmured. At last she jumped up, with an air of resolve, and wandered off, apparently aimlessly, into the recesses of the mill, with one hand resting firmly on Jim's collar. III Two days later Mary Farrell left Brine's Rip. She hugged and kissed Woolly Billy very hard before she left, and cried a little with him, pretending to laugh, and she took her three big trunks with her, in the long-bodied express waggon which carried the mails, although she said she would not be gone more than a month at the outside.