"She'll pay you fer the stuff when you take it over." "I didn't 'low to ask fer pay." "Well, she ain't askin' fer favors, either." Martin stared down the road for some minutes. "But I got more'n I c'n use," he said. "If that's the case you c'n send it over an' she'll be mighty thankful. An' say, I guess I c'n use Bud to-morrow an' next day." "We're purty busy an' I don't see how----" "Don't send him, then. You said you'd thought of it, you know." "I'll send him, though, come to think of it. You say pore little Jestine 'pears to be discouraged?" "Kinder so, I should say. Poor little girl, she's----" Here he leaned over and uttered an almost inaudible bit of information. Martin's eyes bulged and he gasped. "The devil you say! Well, I'll be danged!" 'Gene started down the lane, his jaws set and hard for the moment. Suddenly he turned, and, with the first chuckle of mirth Grimes had heard from him that day, said: "Don't fergit to send over them potaters, too, Martin." Then he trudged rapidly away, leaving Mr. Grimes in a state bordering on collapse. Between the startling bit of information 'Gene had given him, the hint at lawsuits, the insinuation against other women in the locality and his own astounding liberality, he was the most thoroughly confused farmer in Clay township. He went to the house and talked it all over with his wife, and the words of advice that he gave to her savored very much of the mandatory. He dreamed that night that some one sued him for damages and got judgment for $96,000. The next day he sent a wagonload of supplies to Justine, after which he told his wife she could not have the new "calico" he had been promising for three months. Eugene Crawley's position on the old Van farm was queer. He was a self-appointed slave, as it were. True, he was paid wages and he was given his meals in the little kitchen where Justine and Mrs. Crane ate. That privilege was the one recompense that made slavery a charm. In his undisciplined heart there had grown a feeling of reverence for the wife of Jud Sherrod that displaced the evil love of the long ago. His love, in these days, was pure and hopeless. He thought only of lifting the burden that another's love had left upon her shoulders. The 'Gene Crawley of old was no more. In his place was a simple, devoted toiler, a lowly worshipper. Against her will he had attached himself to the farm, and at last he had become indispensable. The fear with which she had once regarded him was gone with the wonderful alteration in his nature. Innocent, unsuspecting child that she was, she thought that his love had died and that it could never be awakened. She did not know the depths of his silent adoration.