nst the door, drooping wearily,
"what are you doing here at this hour?"

"What does the hour matter?" he asked impatiently. "Come over to the
window. I want you to look at this big star. I've been watching it. It's
almost gone. It's like a white bird flying straight into the sun."

He was imperative, laid his cool hand upon hers and drew her to the
window. They stood facing the sunrise.

"Why did you come here?" again asked Sheila. The beauty of the sky only
deepened her misery and shame.

"Because I couldn't wait any longer than one night. It's sure been an
awful long night for me, Sheila ... Sheila--" He drew the hand he still
held close to him with a trembling touch and laid his other hand over it.
Then she felt the terrible beating of his heart, felt that he was
shaking. "Sheila, I love you." She had hidden her face against the
curtain, had turned from him. She felt nothing but weariness and shame.
She was like a leaden weight tied coldly to his throbbing youth. Her hand
under his was hot and lifeless like a scorched rose. "I want you to come
away with me from Millings. You can't keep on a-working in that saloon.
You can't a-bear to have folks saying and thinking the fool things they
do. And I can't a-bear it even if you can. I'd go loco, and kill. Sheila,
I've been thinking all night, just sitting on the edge of my bed and
thinking. Sheila, if you will marry me, I will promise you to take care
of you. I won't let you suffer any. I will die"--his voice rocked on the
word, spoken with an awful sincerity of young love--"before I let you
suffer any. If you could love me a little bit"--he stopped as though that
leaping heart had sprung up into his throat--"only a little bit,
Sheila," he whispered, "maybe--?"

"I can't," she said. "I can't love you that way even a little bit. I
can't marry you, Dickie. I wish I could. I am so tired."

She drew her hand away, or rather it fell from the slackening grasp of
his, and hung at her side. She looked up from the curtain to his face. It
was still alight and tender and pale.

"You're real sure, Sheila, that you _never_ could?--that you'd rather go
on with this--?"

She pressed all the curves and the color out of her lips, still looking
at him, and nodded her head.

"I can't stay in Millings," Dickie said, "and work in Poppa's hotel and
watch this, Sheila--unless, some way, I can help you."

"Then you'd better go," she said lifelessly, "because I can't see what
else ther