Both the young men were still sitting outside the hut. Matthew was talking on in a low voice; Simon nodding in reply; while Andrew, lying on the grass, gazed on the smoke of his brother’s cigarette, rising in tangled threads above the thatch, like bluish gossamer. Matthew rose at last, promising to come again in the afternoon. He intended to go to church, but at the sight of Yagna sitting at the water’s brink, he drew near her. Her pail stood full by her side; she was bathing her feet in the mill-pond. “Yagna!” he whispered very low, approaching beneath the alders. Instantly she let her skirt down over her knees, and bent a look on him—a look so tearful, so full of pain and sorrow, that he felt cut to the heart. “What is it, Yagna? are you ailing?” The trees waved very silently, pouring down their rain of lights and shadows upon her bright head, like a shower of green and gold. “No, but things go not well with me. Not well.” And she looked away from him. “If I could but aid ... or advise you ...” he went on kindly. “What? did you not lately turn away from me in my garden ... and never come near me since?” “For you had spurned me!... How could I dare? O Yagna!” His tone was gentle and full of sympathy. “Aye, but I called after you, and you—you would not hearken!”’ “Did you call me back, Yagna? Truly?” “Truly.—I might have died and no one have come near me. I am a poor forlorn creature, that everyone is free to humble and ill-use!” Her face was burning; she turned it away in confusion, splashing the water with her feet.—Matthew was reflecting. All through the silence which ensued, the symphony of the organ went on trickling in a soothing gentle stream—a streak of mellow sound. The mill-pond shimmered, rolling sinuous ripples from Yagna’s feet, like iridescent serpents: while between her and him there passed warm glances, wreathed and twined together. Matthew was growing more and more fascinated; he longed to take her in his arms and fondle her like a little child, pressing her to his breast and comforting her with the tenderest caresses. “And I thought you unfriendly!” she whispered. “Never was I that; and you know it.” “Never last year, peradventure,” she said, but added unthinkingly: “All the same, ye have gone with the others now!” All at once he remembered, with anger and jealousy gnawing at his heart. “Because ... because ye have ... ye are....” He could not utter the hateful words that choked him, and, checking himself, said harshly: “Fare ye well!” And he turned to leave her, lest he should reproach her with the Voyt. “So once again you go!—But why? what harm have I done you?” She felt startled and pained. “None—none.... But—” and he spoke hurriedly, looking into her deep-blue eyes, and feeling sorrow, anger and tenderness rise up within him by turns—“but—Yagna! do put away from you that abominable creature! Put him away!” he repeated most earnestly.