Chapter 2

Seth Fullerton Wants To Buy

There was some constraint in our meeting, but not much. Though we had not seen each other in a dozen years, we still were cousins and bore the same name. As is natural in such cases, she was the first to speak. It was only to utter my name, but the tone delighted me; and with a smile, I said:

“The years have made some difference, then? We used to quarrel savagely, as children.”

She blushed, and my heart began to dance; but I was careful not to betray my pleasure too openly, for Judith’s eye was one to keep an inconsiderate man in check. Instead, I launched into an immediate discussion of the matter which had brought us together.

“Must this property be sold?” I asked.

“It must.” Her tone was sweet but strangely incisive. “I lack the means to pay the taxes.” My eyes, which had been fixed upon her face, radiant even in this glow of sunshine, fell to her frock, which had given me the impression of simple elegance, but which on closer inspection I found to be quite inexpensive.

“I make enough for my clothes and food,” she smiled, with a quick understanding of my look which made the colour spring into my own cheek, “but nothing beyond. I wish I had been more thoroughly educated.”

What made me think just then of a chance rumour hitherto forgotten? Had there not been some talk last winter about her marrying, and was not the man this very Fullerton who now proposed to buy her house? I was sure that I had once heard their names linked together, and conscious of a certain disagreeable shock at the thought, I said, with what composure I could: “What sort of a man is this Fullerton you wrote me about? I