XXI At Home
XXII Getting Acquainted
XXIII Between the Past and Future
XXIV Given Her Own Way
XXV A Charivari
XXVI "You don't Know"
XXVII Farm and Farmer Bewitched
XXVIII Another Waif
XXIX Husband and Wife in Trouble
XXX Holcroft's Best Hope
XXXI "Never!"
XXXII Jane Plays Mouse to the Lion
XXXIII "Shrink From YOU?"




Chapter I. Left Alone

The dreary March evening is rapidly passing from murky gloom to obscurity.
Gusts of icy rain and sleet are sweeping full against a man who, though
driving, bows his head so low that he cannot see his horses. The patient
beasts, however, plod along the miry road, unerringly taking their course to
the distant stable door. The highway sometimes passes through a grove on the
edge of a forest, and the trees creak and groan as they writhe in the heavy
blasts. In occasional groups of pines there is sighing and moaning almost
human in suggestiveness of trouble. Never had Nature been in a more dismal
mood, never had she been more prodigal of every element of discomfort, and
never had the hero of my story been more cast down in heart and hope than on
this chaotic day which, even to his dull fancy, appeared closing in harmony