After he had gone, the miller stood for a long while, watching the
meal pour from the valve. A bit of chaff had settled on his lashes,
but without moving his hand to brush it away, he shook his head once
or twice with the gesture of an animal that is stung by a wasp. "Why do
they keep at me about her?" he asked passionately. "Is it true that she
is only playing with me as she plays with the others?"--but the pain was
too keen, and turning away with a sigh, he rested his elbows on the
sill of the window and looked out at the moving wheel under the gauzy
shadows. The sound of the water as it rushed through the mill-race into
the buckets and then fell from the buckets into the whirlpool beneath,
was loud in his ears while his quick glance, passing over the drifting
yellow leaves of the sycamore, discerned a spot of vivid red in the
cornlands beyond. The throbbing of his pulses rather than the assurance
of his eyes told him that Molly was approaching; and as the bit of
colour drew nearer amid the stubble, he recognized the jacket of crimson
wool that the girl wore as a wrap on chill autumn mornings. On her head
there was a small knitted cap matching the jacket, and this resting on
her riotous brown curls, lent a touch of boyish gallantry to her slender
figure. Like most women of mobile features and ardent temperament, her
beauty depended so largely upon her mood that Abel had seen her change
from positive plainness to amazing loveliness in the space of a minute.
Her small round face, with its wonderful eyes, dimpled now over the
crimson jacket.

"Abel!" she called softly, and paused with one foot on the log while the
water sparkled beneath her. Ten minutes before he had vowed to himself
that she had used him badly and he would hold off until she made
sufficient amends; but in forming this resolution, he had reckoned
without the probable intervention of Molly.