Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the old man and
his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be done on the
morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon left the room and went
up to his chamber to spend his last, his only unhappy night at the
farm. A yearning, pitying look from Abigail accompanied him.
"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning, as
he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him to the
village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a word
of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last look at her beloved
face, he was taken away.
IV.
True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor,
the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind.
It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard
Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the
few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely
dragged to the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it
back into the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when
he would be free to return, and demand it of her, he would find it
there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its
folded leaves.
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