"
"Oh, my darling," he said, bending tenderly, and holding his hand out to
her, "why will you not give yourself entirely to me? One day you will
desert me and go to another."
She shook her head without looking at him.
"No, life is too long. But I will go with you."
"When?"
"Tomorrow. I have told them that before daylight I go to the next farm. I
will write from the town and tell them the facts. I do not want them to
trouble me; I want to shake myself free of these old surroundings; I want
them to lose sight of me. You can understand that is necessary for me."
He seemed lost in consideration; then he said:
"It is better to have you on those conditions than not at all. If you will
have it, let it be so."
He sat looking at her. On her face was the weary look that rested there so
often now when she sat alone. Two months had not passed since they parted;
but the time had set its mark on her. He looked at her carefully, from the
brown, smooth head to the little crossed feet on the floor. A worn look
had grown over the little face, and it made its charm for him stronger.
For pain and time, which trace deep lines and write a story on a human
face, have a strangely different effect on one face and another. The face
that is only fair, even very fair, they mar and flaw; but to the face whose
beauty is the harmony between that which speaks from within and the form
through which it speaks, power is added by all that causes the outer man to
bear more deeply the impress of the inner.
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