"Poof!" She blew his argument away with a fine sniff of denial, and
her eyes shot forth fresh gleams of conviction. "How absurd to talk
about a human law to keep persons from doing God's infinite will. God
intends for persons to love each other. Love is the one divine thing
that we can be absolutely sure of. Annie and Tobe can't help
themselves. They are out in a storm. It is beating them on all sides--
pounding, driving, dragging, and grinding them. They love each other
with a love that is celestial, a love that is of the spirit rather
than of their poor ill-fed, ill-clothed bodies."

Mostyn's wonder over the girl's depth and facility of expression
clutched him so firmly that he found himself unable to formulate a
fitting reply.

"Oh yes, their love is absolutely genuine," Dolly ran on, loyally.
"Tobe could have married the daughter of a well-to-do farmer over the
mountain whom he had visited several times before he met his wife. The
farmer was willing, I have heard, to give them land to live on, and it
might have been a match, but Tobe accidentally met Annie. She was a
poor girl working in the Ridgeville cotton factory at two or three
dollars a week, which she was giving to her people. She had only two
dresses, the tattered bag of a thing she worked in and another which
she kept for Sundays. Tobe met her and talked to her one day while he
was hauling cotton to the factory, and something in her poor wretched
face attracted him, or maybe it was her sweet voice, for it is as
mellow as music. She wasn't well--had a cough at the time--and he had
read something in a paper about the lint of a factory causing
consumption, and it worried him; people say he couldn't keep from
talking about it. She was on his mind constantly. He was still going
to see the other girl, but he acted so oddly that she became angry