Carlen opened her lips to reply. At that second a step was heard, and
looking up they saw Wilhelm himself coming toward them, walking at his
usual slow pace, his head sunk on his breast, his eyes on the ground.
Great waves of blushes ran in tumultuous flood up Carlen's neck, cheeks,
forehead. John took his hands from her shoulders, and stepped back with
a look of disgust and a smothered ejaculation. Wilhelm, hearing the
sound, looked up, regarded them with a cold, unchanged eye, and turned
in another direction.

The color deepened on Carlen's face. In a hard and bitter tone she said,
pointing with a swift gesture to Wilhelm's retreating form: "You can see
for yourself that there is nothing between us. I do not know what craze
has got into your head." And she walked away, this time unchecked by her
brother. He needed no further replies in words. Tokens stronger than any
speech had answered him. Muttering angrily to himself, he went on down
to the pasture after the cows. It was a beautiful field, more like New
England than Pennsylvania; a brook ran zigzagging through it, and here
and there in the land were sharp lifts where rocks cropped out, making
miniature cliffs overhanging some portions of the brook's-course. Gray
lichens and green mosses grew on these rocks, and belts of wild flag and
sedges surrounded their base. The cows, in a warm day, used to stand
knee-deep there, in shade of the rocks.

It was a favorite place of Wilhelm's. He sometimes lay on the top of one
of these rocks the greater part of the night, looking down into the
gliding water or up into the sky. Carlen from her window had more than
once seen him thus, and passionately longed to go down and comfort his
lonely sorrow.