Their lips
met and the man was startled. He knew now it was no child that
answered him.
Hale walked long that night in the moonlit woods up and around
Imboden Hill, along a shadow-haunted path, between silvery beech-
trunks, past the big hole in the earth from which dead trees
tossed out their crooked arms as if in torment, and to the top of
the ridge under which the valley slept and above which the dark
bulk of Powell's Mountain rose. It was absurd, but he found
himself strangely stirred. She was a child, he kept repeating to
himself, in spite of the fact that he knew she was no child among
her own people, and that mountain girls were even wives who were
younger still. Still, she did not know what she felt--how could
she?--and she would get over it, and then came the sharp stab of a
doubt--would he want her to get over it? Frankly and with wonder
he confessed to himself that he did not know--he did not know. But
again, why bother? He had meant to educate her, anyhow. That was
the first step--no matter what happened. June must go out into the
world to school. He would have plenty of money. Her father would
not object, and June need never know.
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