Hughey pushed his curious wooing persistently. Nearly every evening now he squirted tobacco juice from the porch and bragged of himself and his possessions at Mellie _via_ Mrs. Chunn. His greedy, cruel smile filled the girl with a sick fear. Divining the repulsion he inspired in her, he offered no chance to give expression to it. That the pressure of her environment would wear out her will he was confident, and he could afford to wait till he was sure before he punished her for her detestation of him. But he scored it up against her none the less. His approaches were no more obtrusive than those of a spider, but they were just as certain. Mellie felt herself being taken for granted. He said no word of love and asked none of the privileges usually accorded the successful wooer. None the less he obsessed her every waking moment. She was never oblivious of the encroaching web he spun about her. The time came when he and Mrs. Chunn could discuss before her the details of his marriage to her without spoken protest on her part. She sat in an unconsenting silence that became passionate protest when she was alone with her stepmother. But she knew that she fluttered in vain and that every passing week brought her nearer the inevitable sacrifice. If she could only die—but it takes more than a breaking heart to kill a healthy young woman! Her misery could steal the roses from her cheeks, could keep her tossing through the long nights in an agony of sleepless horror, but in the daytime she dragged herself listlessly about her work as usual. “Mose ’lows he won’t be yere to-night. He’s done gone to Beebee,” Mrs. Chunn explained one evening. Mellie faintly sighed her relief. Mrs. Chunn laid her string of peppers on the table and began on another. She was watching the girl without appearing to do so. “Ain’t you-all keerin’ what fer he’s gone?” Her stepdaughter’s hands fell into her lap. She looked up with a face out of which the color had been suddenly driven. “Yo’ gump, he’s aimin’ to git the license to-morrow.” Everything went black before Mellie’s eyes. She caught at the arms of the rocking chair and gripped them desperately. Presently the blood beat back to her heart. Mrs. Chunn’s dry voice—miles away in the haze—came to her distantly. “’N’s I say, a gyurl that gits fohty acres of good Arkinsaw bottom land with her man is mighty lucky. I reckon I done mighty well by you-all, Mellie. Yo’ hadn’t ought to be so ill and ongrateful.” Mellie hurried out into the quiet night. She was stifling, oppressed by a deadly choking at her throat. She fled through the slashed field, as if driven by some impotent instinct to attempt escape from the evil fate. Habit led her to the big tree in the hickory lead where she and Jed used to play. Her despair was long past tears. She could only lean her head against the bark and give herself to long, dry sobbing till her passion of self-pity had spent itself.