"Gone to town."

"Wish I'd known he was going; I'd had him bring out some twine for me. I think the oats will be ready to cut over on the other place right away, and I don't want to miss any time."

"No, indeed. A hail storm might come up." He glanced at her quickly. She was gazing across the field to where her halfwitted brothers worked, while he was thinking how thoughtful she was. Presently he heard her again.

"Why, if it is urgent--you are out, I--I could go to town and get the twine for you." She was looking at him now and he was confused. Her offer was so like her, so natural. Why was it that they understood each other so well?

"Oh, why, Agnes," he stammered, "that would be asking too much of you!"

"Why so? I shall be glad--glad to oblige you in any way. And it is not too much if one takes into consideration what you have done for--I'll be glad to go...."

"Done for what?" he said, catching up where she had broken off, and eyeing her inquiringly.

She was confused and the same showed in her face. She blushed. She had not meant to say what she did. But he was regarding her curiously. He hadn't thought about the note. She turned then and regarded him out of tender eyes. She played with the bonnet she held in her lap. She looked away and then back up into his face, and her eyes were more tender still. In her expression there was almost an appeal.

"What did you mean by what you started to say, Agnes," he repeated, evenly, but kindly.

"I--I--mean what you did for papa. What--you--you did about that--that--note." It was out at last and she lowered her eyes and struggled to hold back the tears with great effort.

"Oh," he laughed lowly, relievedly. "That was nothing." And he laughed again as if to dismiss it.

"But it _was_ something," she cried, protestingly. "It _was_ something.

It was _everything_ to us." She ended with great emotion apparent in her shaking voice. He shifted. It was awkward, and he was a trifle confused.

"Please don't think of it, Agnes."

"But how can I keep from thinking of it when I know that had it not been your graciousness; your wonderful thoughtfulness, your great kindness, we would have been sold out--bankrupted, disgraced, oh, me!" She covered her face with her hands, but he could see the tears now raining down her face and dropping upon her lap.

"Oh, Agnes," he cried. "I wish you wouldn't do that! Please don't. It hurts me. Besides, how did you know it? I told Brookings that your father was not to know it. I did not want it known." He paused and his voice shook slightly. They had drawn closer and now she reached out and placed her small hand upon his arm.

"Brookings didn't tell. He didn't tell papa; but I knew." She was looking down at the earth.

"I don't understand," she heard him say wonderingly.

"But didn't you think, Jean, that I understood! I understood the very day--a few minutes after papa returned home, brought the old note and told me about the extension." She paused and looked thoughtfully away across the field. "I understood when you drove by a few minutes later.

You had forgotten about it, I could see, and your mind was on other things; but the moment you came into my sight, and I looked out upon you from the window, I knew you had saved us."

Her hand still rested lightly upon his arm. She was not aware of it, but deeply concerned with what she was saying. Presently, when he did not speak, she went on. "I understood and knew that you had forgotten it--that you were too much of a man to let us know what you had done. I can't forget it! I have wanted to tell you how I felt--I felt that I owed it to you to tell you, but I couldn't before."

"Please let's forget it, Agnes," she heard him whisper.

"I can keep from speaking of it, but forget it--never! It was so much like you, like the man that's in you!" and the tears fell again.

"Agnes, Agnes, if you don't hush, almost I will forget myself...."

"I had to tell you, I _had_ to!" she sobbed.

"But it is only a small return for what you did for me. Do you realize, Agnes, had it not been for you, I--I--would not be sitting here now? Oh, think of that and then you will see how little I have done--how very little I can ever do to repay!" His voice was brave, albeit emotional.

He leaned toward her, and the passion was in his face. She grasped his arm tighter as she looked up again into his face out of her tear bedimmed eyes and cried brokenly:

"But Jean, the cases are not parallel. What I did for you I would have done for anybody. It was merely an act of providence; but yours--oh, Jean, _can't you understand_!" He was silent.

"Yours was the act of kindness," she went on again, "the act of a man; and you would have kept it secret; because you would never have had it known, because you would not have us feel under obligation to you. Oh, that is what makes me--oh, it makes me cry when I think of it." The tears flowed freely while her slender shoulders shook with emotion.

[Illustration: From a painting by W.M. Farrow.

"BUT, JEAN, THE CASES ARE NOT PARALLEL. WHAT I DID FOR YOU I WOULD HAVE DONE FOR ANY ONE; BUT YOURS--OH, JEAN, _CAN'T_ YOU UNDERSTAND!"]

And when she had concluded, the man beside her had forgotten _the custom of the country, and its law_ had passed beyond him. He was as a man toward the maid now. Beside him wept the one he had loved as a dream girl. Behind him was the house with the bed she had laid him upon when she saved his life. And when he had awakened, before being conscious of where he was or what had happened to him, he had looked into her eyes and had seen therein his dream girl. She was his by the right of God; he forgot now that she was white while he was black. He only remembered that she was his, and he loved her.

His voice was husky when he answered:

"Agnes, oh, Agnes, I begged you not to. I almost beseeched you, because--oh, don't you understand what is in me, that I am as all men, weak? To have seen you that night--the night I can never forget, the night when you stood over me and I came back to life and saw you. You didn't know then and understand that I had dreamed of you these two years since I had come here: that out of my vision I had seen you, had talked with you, oh, Agnes!" She straightened perceptibly; she looked up at him with that peculiarity in her eyes that even she had never come to understand. They became oblivious to all that was about them, and had unconsciously drawn closer together now and regarded each other as if in some enchanted garden. She sang to him then the music that was in her, and the words were:

"Jean, oh, Jean Baptiste, you have spoken and now at last _I_ understand. And do you know that before I left back there from where I came, I _saw_ you: I dreamed of you and that I would know you, and then I came and so strangely met and have known you now for the man you are, oh, Jean!"

Gradually as the composure that had been theirs passed momentarily into oblivion, and the harvest birds twittered gayly about them, his man's arm went out, and into the embrace her slender body found its way. His lips found hers, and all else was forgotten.

EPOCH THE SECOND

EPOCH THE SECOND

CHAPTER I

REGARDING THE INTERMARRIAGE OF RACES

It was winter, and the white snow lay everywhere; icicles hung from the eaves. All work on the farms was completed. People were journeying to a town half way between Bonesteel and Gregory to take the train for their former homes; others to spend it with their relatives, and Jean Baptiste was taking it for Chicago and New York where he went as a rule at the end of each year.

He was going with an air of satisfaction apparently; for, in truth, he had everything to make him feel so--that is, _almost_ everything. He had succeeded in the West. The country had experienced a most profitable season, and the crop he reaped and sold had made him in round numbers the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars. He had paid for the two hundred acres of land he had bargained for; he had seeded more land in the autumn just passed to winter wheat which had gone into the winter in the best of shape; his health was the best. For what more could he have wished?

And yet no man was more worried than he when he stepped from the stage onto the platform of the station where he was to entrain for the East.... It is barely possible that any man could have been more sad....

To explain this we are compelled to go back a few months; back to the harvest time; to his homestead and where he sat with some one near, very near, and what followed.

"I couldn't help it--I loved you; love you--have loved you always!" he passionately told her.

For answer she had yielded again her lips, and all the love of her warm young heart went out to him.

"I don't understand you always, dear," he whispered. "Sometimes there is something about you that puzzles me. I think it's in your eyes; but I _do_ understand that whatever it is it is something good--it couldn't be otherwise, could it?"