She sat, half sadly, and not very distinctly, dreaming over this problem, when the shade was deepened, and, looking up, she was aware that Jason stood at the entrance to the arbor.  Her heart stopped beating for half a moment, and she felt quite faint and sick.  Then she said, with a smile, half sad, half jocose, ’You are a man now, Jason, are you not?’

There was room for two on the seat, and she moved a little toward the further end as she spoke.

‘I am a man to-day, Hannah,’ he said.  ’Father wants to keep me boy till to-morrow, because this is the Lord’s day, and I suppose it is wicked to be a man on Sunday.  To-morrow I shall go away from here, and not come back for a long, long time.’  His voice trembled, and sounded very cold and sad.

Hannah put her two elbows on her knees, rested her face in her hands, and uttered a little, low, wailing cry, most painful to hear.

Then Jason seated himself beside her, put his arms about her, and, raising her gently up, kissed her on the cheek.  He had never before kissed any woman save his mother.

‘When I come back,’ he said, ’I will marry you, if you love me, and then we will always live together.’

The little maid dried her eyes, and a look sweet and calm, such as, perhaps, the angels wear, stole over her innocent face.

‘Oh, do you love me so?  Will you?’ she said.

‘So help me God, I will,’ he said.

Then she put her arms about his neck, and lifting up her innocent face to his, gave him her heart in one long kiss.

(Just then a light foot, passing toward the house from a neighbor’s, paused at the arbor door, all unknown to those within, and little Martha Hopkins, the neighbor’s daughter and Hannah’s special pet, looked in upon them for a moment.  Then she sped quickly to Deacon Fletcher’s house, and burst, all excitement, into the kitchen.)

‘Will you wait for me, Hannah, darling,’ said Jason, ’all the time it may take me to get ready for a wife, and never love any other man, nor let any other man love you?  Never forget me, for years and years, perhaps, till I come back for you?  Will you always remember that we love each other, and that you are to be my wife?’

‘I will wait for you, dear, if I wait till I die,’ she answered.

He folded her yet more closely to his breast.

While they held each other thus, forgetting all else in the world, his father burst, furious and terrible, into the arbor!

He seized them with a strong and cruel rasp, and tore them pitilessly asunder.

‘Go into the house, boy,’ he cried, ’and leave this’—­

‘Stop!’ shouted Jason, springing to his feet, his face as white as death and his eyes flashing—­’Stop!  Do not call her any name but a good name!  I would not bear it if you were twenty times my father!’

The old man stood transfixed.

’She is as good as you or as my mother, and will go to heaven as well as you when she dies,’ he continued passionately; ’as well as any of us; as well as the minister!  What did you come here for?  Haven’t you driven my life almost to death ever since I can remember; and isn’t that enough, but you must come here and kill my darling, my dear, my love?’