up into
his face.

"Helen!" he breathed. "Helen!"

"Why, Larry!" she murmured, still confused and wondering. "So it _was_
you, after all! But what in the world are you doing here like this? They
told me your name was Patches--Honorable Patches."

Then the man spoke--impetuously, almost fiercely, his words came without
thought.

"I am here because I would be anything, do anything that a man could be
and do to win your love. A year ago, when I told you of my love, and
asked you to be my wife, and, like the silly, pampered, petted fool that
I was, thought that my wealth and the life that I offered could count
for anything with a woman like you, you laughed at me. You told me that
if ever you married, you would wed a man, not a fortune nor a social
position. You made me see myself as I was--a useless idler, a dummy for
the tailors, a superficial chatterer of pretty nothings to vain and
shallow women; you told me that I possessed not one manly trait of
character that could compel the genuine love of an honest woman. You let
me see the truth, that my proposal to you was almost an insult. You made
me understand that your very friendship for me was such a friendship as
you might have with an amusing and irresponsible boy, or a spoiled
child. You could not even consider my love for you seriously, as a woman
like you must consider the love of a strong man. And you were right,
Helen. But, dear, it was for me a bitter, bitter lesson. I went from
you, ashamed to look men in the face. I felt myself guilty--a pitifully
weak and cowardly thing, with no right to exist. In my humiliation, I
ran from all who knew me--I came out here to escape from the life that
had made me what I was--that had robbed me of my manhood. And here, by
chance, in the contests at the celebration in Prescott, I saw a man--a
cowboy--who possessed everything that I lacked, and for the lack of
which you had laughed at me. And then alone one night I faced myself and
fought it out. I knew that you were right, Helen, but it was not easy to
give up the habits and luxury to which all my life I had been
accustomed. It was not easy, I say, but my love for you made it a
glorious thing to do; and I hoped and believed that if I proved myself a
man, I could go back to you, in the strength of my manhood, and you
would listen to me. And so, penniless and a stranger, under an assumed
name, I sought useful, necessary work that called for the highest
quality of manhood. And I