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He rose and left the table at the end of his dinner, without having spoken to her, without even a tender, significant glance, and he knew, too, that she was troubled and hurt. But he was suffering. It seemed as if he had lost something sweet, lost it irrecoverably.

He noticed Ed Kinney and Bill Young were the last to come out, just before the machine started up again after dinner, and he saw them pause outside the threshold and laugh back at Agnes standing in the doorway. Why couldn’t she keep those fellows at a distance, not go out of her way to bandy jokes with them?

Some way the elation of the morning was gone. He worked on doggedly now, without looking up, without listening to the leaves, without seeing the sunlighted clouds. Of course he didn’t think that she meant anything by it, but it irritated him and made him unhappy. She gave herself too freely.

Toward the middle of the afternoon the machine stopped for a time for some repairing; and while Will lay on his stack in the bright yellow sunshine, shelling wheat in his hands and listening to the wind in the oaks, he heard his name and her name mentioned on the other side of the machine, where the measuring box stood. He listened.

"She’s pretty sweet on him, ain’t she? Did yeh notus how she stood around over him?"

"Yes; an’ did yeh see him when she passed the cup o’ tea down over his shoulder?"

Will got up, white with wrath as they laughed.

"Some way he didn’t seem to enjoy it as I would. I wish she’d reach her arm over my neck that way. "

Will walked around the machine, and came on the group lying on the chaff near the straw pile.

"Say, I want you fellers to understand that I won’t have any more of this talk. I won’t have it. "

There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young rose up.

"What yeh goen’ to do about Ut?" be sneered.

"I’m going to stop it. "

The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul flaming from his eyes.

"W’y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two!"

An answering glare came into Will’s eyes. He grasped and slightly shook his fork, which he had brought with him unconsciously.

"If you make one motion at me, I’ll smash your head like an eggshell!" His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone m it that made his own blood stop in his veins. "If you think I’m going to roll around on this ground with a hyena like you, you’ve mistaken your man. I’ll kill you, but I won’t fight with such men as you are. "

Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "coward. "

"I don’t care what you call me, but just remember what I say: you keep your tongue off that girl’s affairs. "

"That’s the talk!" said David. "Stand up for your girl always, but don’t use a fork. You can handle him without that:’

"I don’t propose to try," said Will, as he turned away. As be did so, he caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney at the well, pumping a pail of water for Agnes, who stood beside him, the sun on her beautiful yellow hair. She was laughing at something Ed was saying as he slowly moved the handle up and down.

Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward her. "It’s all her fault," he thought, grinding his teeth. "She’s a fool. If she’d hold herself in like other girls! But no; she must smile and smile at everybody. " It was a beautiful picture, but it sent a shiver through him.

He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He had an impulse that would ?have made him assault her with words as with a knife. He was possessed with a terrible passion which was hitherto latent in him, and which he now felt to be his worst self. But he was powerless to exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the stress of his muscular tension, and his eyes smarted with the strain.

He had always prided himself on being cool, calm, above these absurd quarrels that his companions had so often indulged in. He didn’t suppose he could be so moved. As he worked on, his rage settled down into a sort of stubborn bitterness–stubborn bitterness of conflict between this evil nature and his usual self. It was the instinct of possession, the organic feeling of proprietorship of a woman, which rose to the surface and mastered him. He was not a self-analyst, of course, being young, though he was more introspective than the ordinary farmer.