seemed
about to see and hear some wonderful thing that eluded but called her
on.

And after that first day they met often. "Happened upon each other" was
the way Truedale put it. It seemed very natural. The picturesque spots
appealed to them both. There was reading, too--carefully selected bits.
It was intensely interesting to lead the untrained mind into bewildering
mazes--to watch surprise, wonder, and perplexity merge into
understanding and enjoyment. Truedale experienced the satisfaction of
seeing that, for the first time in his life, he was a great power. The
thought set his brain whirling a bit, but it made him seriously humble
as well.

Gradually his doubts and introspections became more definite; he lived
day by day, hour by hour; while Jim White tarried, Nella-Rose remained;
and the past--Truedale's past--faded almost from sight. He could hardly
realize, when thinking of it afterward, where and how he decided to cut
loose from his past, and all it meant, and accept a future almost
ludicrously different from anything he had contemplated.

One day a reference to Burke Lawson was made and, instead of letting it
pass as heretofore, he asked suddenly of Nella-Rose:

"What is he to you?"

The girl flushed and turned away.

"Burke?--oh, Burke isn't--anything--now!"

"Was he ever--anything?"

"I reckon he wasn't; I _know_ he wasn't!"

Then, like a flash, Truedale believed he understood what had happened.
This simple girl meant more to him than anything else--more than the
past and what it held! A baser man would not have been greatly disturbed
by this knowledge; a man with more experience and background would have
understood it and known that it was a phase that must be dealt with
sternly and uncompromisingly, but that it was merely a phase and as such
bound to pass. Not so Truedale. He was stirred to the roots of his
being; every experience was to him a concrete fact and, consequently,
momentous. In order to keep pure the emotions that overpowered him at
times, he must renounce all that separated him from Nella-Rose and
reconstruct his life; or--he must let _her_ go!

Once Truedale began to reason this out, once he saw Nella-Rose's
dependence upon him--her trust and happiness--he capitulated and
permitted his imagination to picture and colour the time on ahead. He
refused to turn a backward glance.

Of course all this was not achieved without struggle and foreboding; but
he saw no way to hold what once