His heart was great, and he stooped and pitied her gently and passed on.
After a time another man came by, a good and noble man, and he offered her love so wonderful she hadn't brains to comprehend how or why it was." The Girl's voice trailed off as if she were too weary to speak further, while she leaned her head against a pillar and gazed with dull eyes across the lake.
"And your question," suggested the Harvester at last.
She roused herself.

"Oh, the question! Why this----if in time, and after she had tried and tried, love to equal his simply would not come would----would----she be wrong to PRETEND she cared, and do the very best she could, and hope for real love some day?
Oh David, would she ?" The Harvester's face was whiter than the Girl's.

He pounded the chisel into the joist savagely.
"Would she, David ?" "Let me understand you clearly," said the man in a dry, breathless voice.

"Did she love this first man to whom she came under obligations ?" The Girl sat gazing across the lake and the tortured Harvester stared at her.
"I don't know," she said at last.

"I don't know whether she knew what love was or ever could.