a root. Do you know now why I am sharp, wary, suspicious, doubt if there
be a God? Grey," turning fiercely, "I am tired of this. God did make me.
I want rest. I want love, peace, religion, in my life."

She said nothing. She forgot herself, her timid shyness now, and looked
into his eyes, a noble, helpful woman, sounding the depths of the turbid
soul laid bare for her.

He laid his big, ill-jointed hand on her knee.

"I thought," he said.--great drops of sweat coming out on his sallow
lips,--"God meant you to help me. There is my life, little girl. You may
do what you will with it. It does not value much to me."

And Grey, woman-like, gathered up the despised hand and life, and sobbed
a little as she pressed them to her heart. An hour after, they went
together up the old porch-steps, halting a moment where the grape-vines
clustered thickest about the shingled wall. The house was silent; even
the village slept in the moonlight: no sound of life in the great
sweep of dusky hill and valley, save the wreaths of mist over the
watercourses, foaming and drifting together silently: before morning
they would stretch from base to base of the hills like a Dead Sea, ashy
and motionless. They stood silent a moment, until the chirp of some
robin, frightened by their steps in its nest overhead, had hummed
drowsily down into sleep.

"It is not good-night, but good-bye, that I must bid you, Grey," he
said, stooping to see her face.

"I know. But you will come again. God tells me that."