"But you don't ask me if I love you?"

"But you do--you couldn't help it now," she said confidently.

What could he do but reply as illogically with a closer embrace, albeit
a slight tremor as if a cold wind had blown across the open window,
passed over him. She may have felt it too, for she presently said, "Kiss
me and let me go."

"But we must have a longer talk, darling--when--when--others are not
waiting."

"Do you know the far barn near the boundary?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I used to take your books there, afternoons to--to--be with you," she
whispered, "and Paw gave orders that no one was to come nigh it while I
was there. Come to-morrow, just before sundown."

A long embrace followed, in which all that they had not said seemed,
to them at least, to become articulate on their tremulous and clinging
lips. Then they separated, he unlocking the door softly to give her
egress that way. She caught up a book from a desk in passing, and
then slipped like a rosy shaft of the coming dawn across the fading
moonlight, and a moment after her slow voice, without a tremor of
excitement, was heard calling to her companions.