had died out of her face, it was shrunken again, like a thin paper mask from behind which there had flashed, for a moment, a Hallowe’en candle. They began to pass people. Aaron Todd, stout farmer and lumberman, rode by in his wagon and nodded to Trench, staring at the child. Jean he knew. Then came two more farmers, and later a backwoodsman, who greeted Trench as he galloped past on his lean, mud-bespattered horse. Then two women passed on the farther side. They spoke to Trench timidly, for he was a reserved man and they did not know him well, but they drew away their skirts from Jean, who was the Shameful Thing at Paradise Ridge.

[20]

Strange thoughts beset Caleb; suddenly the girl’s accusation went home; suppose he had been the father of this child on his arm,—would they pass him and speak, and pass her with skirts drawn aside? God knew. He thought it only too probable, knowing men—and women. He was a just man on occasions, but at heart a passionate one. Inwardly he stormed, outwardly he was calm. The dog trailed behind him; so did the girl, a broken thing, who had just sense enough to feel the women’s eyes. They passed more people. Again Caleb answered salutations, again he heard the girl whimper as if she shrank from a blow.

At her own door, which was her grandmother’s,[21] he set down the child. A shrill voice began screaming. “Is the hussy there? Come in with you, you thing of shame; what d’ye walk in the road for? The Ridge is fair screamin’ with your disgrace, you trollop. Jean, Jean!”

[21]

The old woman was childish, but she knew the tale and retained it. There was also a half-foolish brother; it seemed as if, in the making of this luckless family, the usual three pints of wits had been spilled to a half pint and then diluted to go around. Zeb Bartlett came to the door, shambling and dirty, but grinning at the sight of Trench. Sammy ran from him shrieking, for he feared the theft of his spoils. Zeb towered in righteous wrath as Jean appeared.

“Get in, Shameless!” he commanded.

The girl shrank past him sobbing.

“My God!” said Caleb Trench and turned away.

He did not heed an appeal for help to get work that Zeb shouted after him; he was, for the moment, deaf. Before him lay the broad fields and sloping hills, the beauty of earth and sky, drenched in sunset; behind lay a girl’s purgatory. He forgot his anger at her senseless accusation, he 

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