anything more. I am really leaving everything to you: parents, home,
and Eva too. She cannot belong to both. Those were hard moments for
me on yonder meadow. If you had to bear what I went through in those
moments you could not stand it. Thus it is good that she chose you. To
me it was as if I was drowning again, only the swamp into which you
threw me this time was much deeper than the one before. Mother said I
seem to be ill. Here I shall never get well--over there far away, I
can recover sooner. I give you my hand in parting, and you give me
yours without any bitterness. Let us part like brothers.'

"I clasped his hand silently. He took his things, then ran down along
the path into the thicket. Bending over beside the cross I tried to
see him once more--and I did. He lifted his beautiful face marked with
deep sorrow toward the valley where he could see our hut for the last
time. Suddenly tears gushed from his eyes. I wanted to make a step
forward, wanted to call him back, to leave everything to him, and I go
to America. But there was no strength in me. So I let him go for ever.
We never saw him again."

Bacha cried aloud again, and Palko with him.

"Uncle, tell me all, to the end," he begged after a while. "Then what
about his poor mother? How did you tell her about it?"

"I didn't have to tell her, my boy," said Filina as he calmed down.
"He took care of all that. Mother had a distant relative who came
to us the third day and brought everything that Stephen should have
brought from the city; also a letter from him, wherein he begged our
parents not to be angry with him because he was thus leaving for
America. In that letter he again made no mention that it was I who