“My dear child!” Edna took the young girl in her arms to comfort her, while Adam took the letter from Rachel’s hand and scanned it. After a moment he added his soothing sounds to Edna’s, and Doreen, feeling unneeded and a little jealous for James’s sake, went out of the parlor and back to the office to be with him.

But when she entered and told him what had taken Adam from the business that had engaged the two brothers, James frowned seriously, and closed the ledger he held in his hands. He went out and through the hallway, Doreen following, and arrived at the open front door in time to see Adam and Rachel go down the steps and into the grounds. James watched them, frowning more deeply, and Doreen watched James, her throat and eyeballs aching with the tears she knew she must not show him.

“Now now now now now now now—”

She went from muffled weeping to gasping laughter in a moment. “Stop!—oh, do! You sound like someone calling cows.”

He took advantage of her laughter to make a conscious joke of it, saying again, “Now now now now—”

She then stopped his lips with her hand, and as he lifted a leafy vine in the arbor they had come to and so entered, he took the middle finger of her reprimanding hand with his lips and teeth and began to suck on it. She pressed herself against him when they were in the shadows of the vines, drew her breath in sharply and held it. Not breathing at all, she strained her body against him. His teeth released her fingertip; his lips reached for her lips and met them reaching for his. They clung and kissed like starvelings. When they had to break off or suffocate, they laughed at themselves, and Adam laughed again when she remained still, looking at him.

“How can we marry and live together?” he said. “I shall want to be holding you and loving you every instant! We shall starve for not thinking to eat, smother from kissing and forgetting to breathe!”

“Adam—you will not go?”

“Someone must. Should I ask my brother or father to go for me? They do not ask me to do their work.”

“It can surely wait—”

“No, dearest. This is not a matter of whim or convenience. It is business, the life and breath of Oaks—and Beulah Land too. I act as cotton agent for your father too on this trip.”

“I’ll tell him not to let you go!”

He held her by both wrists. “Rachel! I love you! I love you! But you must not ever use that fact to get your way with me, do you hear?”

“It is not a question of getting my way— You read the letter.”

“Yes, and I have read and heard other reports and rumors too. There are a thousand.”