few weeks had been stalking through her imagination, and after a time she began to feel really serene and easy in his company. When the cherry-pitter had been found and she was preparing to leave, Charlie said to her, "If you're going home now, I guess I'll walk along with you," and Esther assented as thought nothing could have been more natural. Mrs. Martin went to the door with them, holding a lamp above her head to light them across the yard. "We really don't need it", Esther said, "It's as bright as day outside." She walked across the grass with Charlie at her side; they called back goodbye over their shoulders; the gate clicked behind them and they were upon the road. The For a long time they walked along under the shadow of the luxuriant elms which grew beside the Martin's fence. Then they emerged into the full moonlight and saw the road lying very white and still before them. Having nothing to say to one another, they walked along for some time in silence. Esther was calmed by the largeness of the night about her and she felt none of the embarrassment that she had anticipated in Charlie's company. moonlight was a friendly thing: it covered her as though with armour, and gave her confidence. But Charlie seemed greatly agitated. He walked close by her side and kept giving her quick, sidelong glances. Presently he slipped an arm through hers, stealthily, as though he were trying to rob a sleeping person. Esther did not object for she felt cold and impersonal as a stone. But as Charlie continued to press her arm and to look at her in that timid, sidelong manner, she began to feel a real disgust for him. He seemed a weak thing after all with his arm lying there so stealthily against hers. She could almost feel the shame and discomfort which must be working inside him. How stiff and bloodless that arm must be, thrust into her unfeeling one as though into a cast. And how hotly he must be squirming inside his clothes. It gave her further confidence to find that she could project herself thus into his thoughts. "How silly I have been to let him worry and annoy me! But I have the upper hand now. He is weaker than I am." She felt like a child when he first discovers that the darkness is not some evil spirit, something to brood over and be afraid of, but simply the absence of light. In her confidence she squared her shoulders and began planning the words with which she would shame and degrade him if he grew too bold. Charlie had cleared his throat several times as though he were trying to find the courage to tell her something. At last she heard him speaking in a husky and uncertain whisper. “I don't see what's got into you lately, Esther. You've been acting so queer to me, and without any reason so far as I can see. Everyone notices it and laughs about it. I'm sure I've done nothing to deserve it. I like you best of all the girls, I always have—”" Esther moved her lips to speak the words which had been forming themselves in her mind, but as she did so all her confidence seemed to rush out in a breath. Her voice would not come. Her courage was swept away by the force with which Charlie seized her. Suddenly they were sitting on the roadside. She felt his arm about her neck, not stealthy now but strong and compelling, pulling her backwards. And as her head sank into the high grass she felt as though she were being pulled under water. Her eyes went shut; her ears tingled; she made a little struggle and lay still. With his cool, rough hands he explored her face and whateved he touched seemed to catch fire and throb after him. His hands were enormous: not a part of her that they did not touch. They were in her hair, on her neck, in the warm places under her arms. She could no longer lie there passively, so she began to reach out for him with her arms. First she touched his face and her fingers dwelt a long time in the hollow of his chin. Then she felt his neck: it was swollen and seemed too large for the collar of his shirt. She managed somehow to tear that open and a warm mist rushed up over her hand, engulfed it, engulfed her as well. In about an hour she rose and left Charlie, cautioning him tenderly not to follow her, for she had decided to make a circuit of the fields before going in. So she set out across the meadow, skirting the back of her father's house which she could see gleaming faintly through its cluster of feathery locusts, and presently she found herself out of sight of her lover. For the first time in weeks she felt the night beauty. Here eyes were clear now and alert to what lay before them. Even her feet seemed to have been unburdened and she ran swiftly, with her head turned upwards, as she had not done in years. In this mood she came to a low, swampy pool where the cows drank and cooled themselves on hot days. Seating herself on a log, one end of which lay under water, she shivered to see the ripples dart away from it and scurry across the surface of the pool. From the depths of it and from the high grass which grew about its margins came a multitude of sounds. All the minute life of field and wood and water seemed to be wakeful and to be bravely chanting. And there was no note of discordance among them for Esther herself had never been more ecstaic. In her mind there was no thought of Charlie or herself, no feeling of shame or remorse for what had just occurred, no care for the future. She seemed to be living alone, in some great hollow place, windless and without walls. She folded her hands back of her head and looked intently into the face of the moon until the ecstacy began to pass and she felt her eyes growing cloudy and a dull fatigue pressing on her like a weight. "I must go in before these feelings get the best of me. I must stave them off as long as I possibly can.' She turned away from the pool and walked rapidly till she came under the chilly shade of the locusts which grew about her house. Then she entered the low door and found her father lying asleep under the lamplight. F. W. DUPEE Cloaking DIMLY, Grimly, The sea-fog advances, Veiling, Impaling Sheets on the lances The inveterate barber Of detail; The dealer in wholesale Expression! There is nothing retail About fog. In Georgia I SAW a river at the time of falling night, Slate-coloured misty band within a dismal land, Wrapped within the dimness of a rain-returning night, Waste of matted swamp-land extending on each hand. No sound or stirring thing was in that gray, gray scene; Even movement of the water was lapped up in the fog— Suddenly to westward I saw a light burn green, Heard a man's halooing and the barking of a dog. |