a saw that he was shaking. It meant so much to him,
then--? She unfolded the papers shrinkingly and read. As she read, the
blood rushed to her checks for shame. She ought never to have doubted
him. Never after the first look into his face, never after hearing him
speak of the "cold, white flame" of an unforgotten winter night. Dickie's
words, so greatly loved and groped for, so tirelessly pursued in the face
of his world's scorn and injury, came to him, when they did come, on
wings. In the four short poems, there was not a word outside of his inner
experience, and yet she felt that those words had blown through him
mysteriously on a wind--the wind that fans such flame--

"Oh, little song you sang to me
A hundred, hundred days ago,
Oh, little song whose melody
Walks in my heart and stumbles so;
I cannot bear the level nights,
And all the days are over-long,
And all the hours from dark to dark
Turn to a little song--"

"Like the beat of the falling rain,
Until there seems no roof at all,
And my heart is washed with pain--"

"Why is a woman's throat a bird,
White in the thicket of the years?--"

Sheila suddenly thrust back the leaves at him, hid her face and fell to
crying bitterly. Dickie let fall his poems; he hovered over her, utterly
bewildered, utterly distressed.

"Sheila--h-how could they possibly hurt you so? It was your song--your
song--Are you angry with me--? I couldn't help it. It kept singing in
me--It--it hurt."

She thrust his hand away.

"Don't be kind to me! Oh--I am ashamed! I've treated you _so_! And--and
snubbed you. And--and condescended to you, Dickie. And shamed you.
You--! And you can write such lines--and you are great--you will be very
great--a poet! Dickie, why couldn't I see? Father would have seen. Don't
touch me, please! I can't bear it. Oh, my dear, you must have been
through such long, long misery--there in Millings, behind that desk--all
stifled and cramped and shut in. And when I came, I might have helped
you. I might have understood ... But I hurt you more."

"Please don't, Sheila--it isn't true. Oh,--_damn_ my poems!"

This made her laugh a little, and she got up and dried her eyes and sat
before him like a humbled child. It was quite terrible for Dickie. His
face was drawn with the discomfort of it. He moved about the room,
miserable and restless.

Sheila recovered herself and looked up at him with a sort of wan
resolution.

"And you will stay here and work the ranch