something to keep for me till I come back."

"What is it?"

He took her chubby cheeks between his hands and laid on her cherry-ripe
lips a keepsake which he never reclaimed.

She stood watching him from the gate until, as a clump of willows snatched
him from her, she thought, "He will go right by where Al is at work. It
would be jest like him to jump over the fence and have a talk with him.
I'd like to hear it."

An hour or so later, as she sat and sewed in the airy little entry, a
shadow fell upon her work, and as she looked up her startled eyes met the
piercing glance of her discarded lover. A momentary ripple of remorse
passed over her cheerful heart as she saw Allen's pale and agitated face.
He was paler than she had ever seen him, with that ghastly pallor of
weather-beaten faces. His black hair, wet with perspiration, clung
clammily to his temples. He looked beaten, discouraged, utterly fatigued
with the conflict of emotion. But one who looked closely in his eyes would
have seen a curious stealthy, half-shaded light in them, as of one who,
though working against hope, was still not without resolute will.

Dame Barringer, who had seen him coming up the walk, bustled in:
"Good-morning, Allen. How beat out you do look! Now, I like a stiddy young
man, but don't you think you run this thing of workin' into the ground?"

"Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile--"leastways I've been
a-running this spade into the ground all the morning, and--"