One evening in late June Mrs. Williamson was sitting by her kitchen window. Her knitting lay unheeded in her lap, and Timothy, though he nestled ingratiatingly against her foot as he lay on the rug and purred his loudest, was unregarded. She rested her face on her hand and looked out of the window, across the distant harbour, with troubled eyes.  
“I guess I must speak,” she thought wistfully. “I hate to do it. I always did hate . My mother always used to say that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a and them she with was worse than the first. But I guess it’s my duty. I was Margaret’s friend, and it is my duty to protect her child any way I can. If the Master does go back across there to meet her I must tell him what I think about it.”
 
Overhead in his room, Eric was walking about whistling. Presently he came downstairs, thinking of the , and the girl who would be waiting for him there.
 
As he crossed the little front entry he heard Mrs. Williamson’s voice calling to him.
 
“Mr. Marshall, will you please come here a moment?”
 
He went out to the kitchen. Mrs. Williamson looked at him deprecatingly. There was a flush on her faded cheek and her voice trembled.
 
“Mr. Marshall, I want to ask you a question. Perhaps you will think it isn’t any of my business. But it isn’t because I want to . No, no. It is only because I think I ought to speak. I have thought it over for a long time, and it seems to me that I ought to speak. I hope you won’t be angry, but even if you are I must say what I have to say. Are you going back to the old Connors orchard to meet Kilmeny Gordon?”
 
For a moment an angry flush burned in Eric’s face. It was more Mrs. Williamson’s tone than her words which startled and annoyed him.
 
“Yes, I am, Mrs. Williamson,” he said coldly. “What of it?”
 
“Then, sir,” said Mrs. Williamson with more firmness, “I have got to tell you that I don’t think you are doing right. I have been suspecting all along that that was where you went every evening, but I haven’t said a word to any one about it. Even my husband doesn’t know. But tell me this, Master. Do Kilmeny’s uncle and aunt know that you are meeting her there?”
 
“Why,” said Eric, in some confusion, “I—I do not know whether they do or not. But Mrs. Williamson, surely you do not suspect me of meaning any harm or wrong to Kilmeny Gordon?”
 
“No, I don’t, Master. I might think it of some men, but never of you. I don’t for a minute think that you would do her or any woman any wrong. But you may do her great harm for all that. I want you to stop and think about it. I guess you haven’t thought. Kilmeny can’t know anything about the world or about men, and she may get to thinking too much of you. That might break her heart, because you couldn’t ever marry a dumb girl like her. So I don’t think you ought to be meeting her so often in this fashion. It isn’t right, Master. Don’t go to the orchard again.”
 
Without a word Eric turned away, and went upstairs to his room. Mrs. Williamson picked up her knitting with a sigh.
 
“That’s done, Timothy, and I’m real thankful,” she said. “I guess there’ll be no need of saying anything more. Mr. Marshall is a fine young man, only a little thoughtless. Now that he’s got his eyes opened I’m sure he’ll do what is right. I don’t want Margaret’s child made unhappy.”
 
Her husband came to the kitchen door and sat down on the steps to enjoy his evening smoke, talking between whiffs to his wife of Elder Tracy’s church row, and Mary Alice Martin’s beau, the price Jake Crosby was giving for eggs, the quantity of hay yielded by the hill meadow, the trouble he was having with old Molly’s , and the respective merits of Plymouth Rock and Brahma roosters. Mrs. Williamson answered at , and heard not one word in ten.
 
“What’s got the Master, Mother?” inquired old Robert, presently. “I hear him striding up and down in his room ‘sif he was caged. Sure you didn’t lock him in by mistake?”
 
“Maybe he’s worried over the way Seth Tracy’s in school,” suggested Mrs. Williamson, who did not choose that her gossipy husband should suspect the truth about Eric and Kilmeny Gordon.
 
“Shucks, he needn’t worry a over that. Seth’ll quiet down as soon as he finds he can’t run the Master. He’s a rare good teacher—better’n Mr. West was even, and that’s saying something. The trustees are hoping he’ll stay for another term. They’re going to ask him at the school meeting to-morrow, and offer him a raise of supplement.”
 
Upstairs, in his little room under the eaves, Eric Marshall was in the grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion he had ever experienced.
 
Up and down, to and fro, he walked, with set lips and hands. When he was wearied out he flung himself on a chair by the window and with the flood of feeling.
 
Mrs. Williamson’s words had torn away the veil with which he had bound his eyes. He was face to face with the knowledge that he loved Kilmeny Gordon with the love that comes but once, and is for all time. He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it. He knew that he must have loved her ever since t............