"You'll say
good-bye for me to Verena?"
She heard the closing of the outer door and the sound of his quick tread
along the path. The latch of the gate clicked after him.
The next morning when she arose in the cold dawn and opened her shutters
she saw a freckled boy standing on the other side of the road and
looking up at her. He was a boy from a farm three or four miles down the
Creston road, and she wondered what he was doing there at that hour, and
why he looked so hard at her window. When he saw her he crossed over and
leaned against the gate unconcernedly. There was no one stirring in the
house, and she threw a shawl over her night-gown and ran down and let
herself out. By the time she reached the gate the boy was sauntering
down the road, whistling carelessly; but she saw that a letter had been
thrust between the slats and the crossbar of the gate. She took it out
and hastened back to her room.
The envelope bore her name, and inside was a leaf torn from a
pocket-diary.
DEAR CHARITY:
I can't go away like this.
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