"Abel," she said, "tell me that you are happy," and lifted her mouth to his kiss. "Something in the spring makes me wild for you, Molly. I can't live without you another year, and hear the blue birds and see the green burst out so sudden. There is a terrible loneliness in the spring, darling." "But I'm here, Abel." "Yes, you're here, but you aren't near enough, for I'm never sure of you. That's the cause of it--shall I ever be sure of you even after we are married? You've got different blood in you, Molly--blood that doesn't run quiet,--and it makes me afraid. Do you know I've been to look at the pines this morning, and I am all one big ache to begin on the house." "But you're happy--say you're happy." "How can I be happy, when I'm wanting you with every drop of my blood and yet never certain that I shall have you. The devil has a lot to do with it, I reckon--for there are times when I am half blind with jealousy and doubt of you. Did you ever kiss a man before me, Molly?" She laughed, moved by an instinct to torment him. "You wouldn't have asked me that three months ago, and you wouldn't have cared." "It's different now. I've got a right to know." "You'll never know anything because you have the 'right' to," she returned impatiently. "I hate the word--how silly you are, Abel." "If you'd call me mad you'd come nearer to it, I reckon. It's the way of the Hawtreys--we've always gone neck and crop over the fences without giving a thought to the damage we've done by the way. My mother went like that at religion--she's gone over so hard to religion that she hasn't left a piece of her for common humanity. All the world is divided for her between religion and damnation. I believe she thinks the very eggs in the hen-house are predestined to be saved or damned. And with me it's the same, only it isn't religion, but you. It's all you to me, Molly, even the spring." "You're so wholehearted, and I'm so lightminded. You ought to have loved a staid, sober woman. I was born passionate and changeful just as you were born passionate and steady." "Don't, Molly, if you only knew how you hurt me when you talk like that. You've flown into my heart like a little blue bird into a cage, and there you'll beat and flutter, but you can't get out. Some day you'll rest there quiet, sweetheart." "Don't call it a cage, and never, never try to hold me or I'll fly away." "Yet you love me, Molly?" She threw her arms about his neck, rising on tiptoe while she kissed his mouth. "I love you--and yet in my heart I don't really believe in love," she answered. "I shouldn't be surprised to wake up any morning and find that I had dreamed it." "It makes me want to curse those that put your mind out of joint when you were little and innocent." "I don't believe I was ever little and innocent--I was born out of bitterness." "Then I'll cure you, darling. I'll love you so hard that you'll forget all the terrible things you knew as a child."