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“Lined deadfalls are thoroughfares to woodsmen,” she answered, defiantly. “You are as free as I am in these woods–but not more free.”

The defiance, instead of irritating him, touched him. In it he felt a strange pathos–the proud protest of a heart that beat as free as the thudding wings of the wild birds he sometimes silenced with a shot.

“It is quite true,” he said, gently; “you are perfectly free in these woods.”

“But not by your leave!” she said, and the quick color stung her cheeks.

“It is not necessary to ask it,” he replied.

“I mean,” she said, desperately, “that neither I nor my father recognize your right to these woods.”

“Your father?” he repeated, puzzled.

“Don’t you know who I am?” she said, in surprise.

“I know you sing very beautifully in church,” he said, smiling.

“My name,” she said, quietly, “is the name of your father’s old neighbor. I am Jessie Jocelyn.”

His face was troubled, even in his surprise. The line between his eyes deepened. “I did not know you were Mr. Jocelyn’s daughter,” he said, at last.

Neither spoke for a moment. Presently Gordon raised his head and found her brown eyes on him.

“I wish,” he said, wistfully, “that you would let me walk with you a little way. I want to ask your advice. Will you?”

“I am going home,” she said, coldly.

She turned away, moving two or three paces, then the next step was less hasty, and the next was slower still. As he joined her she looked up a trifle startled, then bent her head.

“Miss Jocelyn,” he said, abruptly, “have you ever heard your father say that my father treated him harshly?”

She stopped short beside him. “Have you?” he repeated, firmly.

“I think,” she said, scornfully, “your father can answer that question.”

“If he could,” said Gordon, “I would ask him. He is dead.”

She was listening to him with face half averted, but now she turned around and met his eyes again.

“Will you answer my question?” he said.

“No,” she replied, slowly; “not if he is dead.”

Young Gordon’s face was painfully white. “I beg you, Miss Jocelyn, to answer me,” he said. “I beg you will answer for your father’s sake and–in justice to my father’s son.”

“What do you care–” she began, but stopped short. To her surprise her own bitterness seemed forced. She saw he did care. Suddenly she pitied him.

“There was a promise broken,” she said, gravely.

“What else?”

“A man’s spirit.”

They walked on, he clasping his gun with nerveless hands, she breaking the sapless twigs as she passed, with delicate, idle fingers.

Presently he said, as though speaking to himself: “He had no quarrel with the dead, nor has the dead with him–now. What my father would now wish I can do–I can do even yet–“

Under her deep lashes her brown eyes rested on him pitifully. But at his slightest motion she turned away, walking in silence.

As they reached the edge of the woods in a burst of sunshine he looked up at her and she stopped. Below them the smoke curled from her weather-racked house. “Will you have me for a guest?” he said, suddenly.

“A guest!” she faltered.

A new mood was on him; he was smiling now.

“Yes, a guest. It is Thanksgiving Day, Miss Jocelyn. Will you and your father forget old quarrels–and perhaps forgive?”

Again she rested her slender hands on his dogs’ heads, looking out over the valley.

“Will you forgive?” he asked, in a low voice.

“I? Yes,” she said, startled.

“Then,” he went on, smiling, “you must invite me to be your guest. When I look at that partridge, Miss Jocelyn, hunger makes me shameless. I want a second-joint–indeed I do!”

Her sensitive lips trembled into a smile, but she could not meet his eyes yet.

“Our Thanksgiving dinner would horrify you,” she said–“a pickerel taken on a gang-hook, woodcock shot in Brier Brook swales, and this partridge–” She hesitated.

“And that partridge a victim to his own rash passion for winter grapes,” added Gordon, laughing.

The laugh did them both good.