ows.

"Don't!" she called sharply, as she sprang up and slipped a capable arm
under his shoulders, laying his head on her breast. "You ort not to do
thataway," she reproached him. "When you want anything I'll git it."

"I don't want a thing, but this," whispered Creed, looking up into her
eyes. "Nothing, only----"

Judith read the mute prayer aright, and tears of exquisite feeling
blinded her. As she looked at him, there was loosed upon her soul the
whole tide of passionate tenderness which had gathered there since first
she saw him standing, eager, fearless, selfless, on the Court House steps
at Hepzibah. The yellow head lay on her arm now; those blue eyes which,
in many bitter hours since that time, had seemed as unattainable to her
love as the sky itself, were raised to her own, they were pleading for
her kiss. She bent her face; the full red lips met Creed's. The weary
longing was satisfied; the bitterness was washed away.

They remained quietly thus, Creed drinking in new life from her nearness,
from her dearness. When she would have lifted her head, his thin hand
went up and was laid over the rounded cheek, bringing the sweet mouth
back to his own.

"I'll need a heap of loving, Judith," he whispered,--"a heap. I've been
such a lone fellow all my days. You'll have to be everything and
everybody to me."

[Illustration: "They had forgotten all the world save themselves
and their love."]

Judith's lavish nature, so long choked back upon itself, trembled to its
very core with rapture at the bidding. It seemed to her that all of
Heaven she had ever craved was to do and be everything that Creed
Bonbright needed. She answered with an inarticulate murmur of tenderness,
a sound inexpressibly wooing and moving. All that she had felt, all that
she meant for the future, surged strong within her--was fain for
utterance. But Judith was not fluent; she must content herself with doing
and being--Creed could speak for her now. She cherished the fair hair
with loving touch, nestling the thin cheek against her soft, warm one.

The beautiful storm-rocked craft of Judith's passion was safe at last in
Love's own harbour; the skies were fair above it, and only Love's tender
airs breathed about its weary sails.

"We'll be wedded in the spring," Creed's lips murmured against her own.
"I'll carry home a bride to the old place. Oh, we'll be happy, Judith."

All through the latter part of the night, while the two lovers were
drawi