in her own heart, and daily her affection for him had grown; and there
was Thornton--this man beside her, whose companionship somehow she
seemed to crave for, who, in his grave, quiet manliness, seemed a sort
of inspiration to her, who seemed in a curious way to appease a new
hunger that had come to her for association, for contact with better
thoughts and better ideals.

What was it? Environment? Yes; there must be something in that. It was
having its effect even on Pale Face Harry and the Flopper. What was it
that Harry, a surprisingly lusty farmhand now, had said to her a week or
so ago: "Say, Helena, do you ever feel that while you was trying to kid
the crowd about this living on the square, you was kind of getting
kidded yourself? I dunno! I ain't coughed for a month--honest. But it
ain't only that. Say--I dunno! Do you ever feel that way?"

Yes; there must be something in environment. The old life had never
brought her thoughts such as these, thoughts that had been with her now
almost since the first day she had come to Needley--this disquiet, this
self-questioning, these sudden floods of condemnatory confusion; and,
mingling with them, a startled thrill, a strange, half-glad,
half-premonitory awakening, a vague pronouncement that innately it might
be true that she was not what she _really_ was--but what all those
around her held her to be--what Mrs. Thornton had said she was--and--

Her fingers closed with a quick, fierce pressure on the arm-rest of her
seat--and she shifted her position with a sudden, involuntary movement.

Thornton, a road-map tacked on a piece of board and propped up at his
feet, raised his head, and, self-occupied himself, had apparently not
noticed her silence, for he spoke irrelevantly.