"Four weeks," Bonner was saying to her reflectively, as they came homeward from their last visit to the abandoned mill on Turnip Creek. It was a bright, warm February morning, suggestive of spring and fraught with the fragrance of something far sweeter. "Four weeks of idleness and joy to me--almost a lifetime in the waste of years. Does it seem long to you, Miss Gray--oh, I remember, I am to call you Rosalie."
"It seems that I have known you always instead of for four weeks," she said gently. "They have been happy weeks, haven't they? My--our only fear is that you haven't been comfortable in our poor little home. It's not what you are accustomed--"
"Home is what the home folks make it," he said, striving to quote a vague old saying. He was dimly conscious of a subdued smile on her part and he felt the fool. "At any rate, I was more than comfortable. I was happy--never so happy. All my life shall be built about this single month--my past ends with it, my future begins. You, Rosalie," he went on swiftly, his eyes gleaming with the love that would not be denied, "are the spirit of life as I shall know it from this day forth. It is you who have made Tinkletown a kingdom, one of its homes a palace. Don't turn your face away, Rosalie."
But she turned her face toward him and her dark eyes did not flinch as they met his, out there in the bleak old wood.
"Don't, please don't, Wicker," she said softly, firmly. Her hand touched his arm for an instant. "You will understand, won't you? Please don't!" There was a world of meaning in it.
His heart turned cold as ice, the blood left his face. He understood. She did not love him.
"Yes," he said, his voice dead and hoarse, "I think I understand, Rosalie. I have taken too much for granted, fool that I am. Bah! The egotism of a fool!"
"You must not speak like that," she said, her face contracted by pain and pity. "You are the most wonderful man I've ever known--the best and the truest. But--" and she paused, with a wan, drear smile on her lips.
"I understand," he interrupted. "Don't say it. I want to think that some day you will feel like saying something else, and I want to hope, Rosalie, that it won't always be like this. Let us talk about something else." But neither cared to speak for what seemed an hour. They were in sight of home before the stony silence was broken. "I may come over from Bonner Place to see you?" he asked at last. He was to cross the river the next day for a stay of a week or two at his uncle's place.