that I have hoped this moment might
never come."

Thaine caught her arm eagerly.

"No! no! We can never, never be anything but friends, and if you care more
than that for me now, if you really love me--"the voice was very
soft--"don't ask me why. I cannot tell you, but I know we can never be
anything more than friends, never, never."

The sorrow on her white face, the pathos of the great violet eyes, the
firm outline of the red lips told Thaine Aydelot that words were hopeless.
He had known her every mood from childhood. She never dallied nor
hesitated. The grief of her answer went too deep for words to argue
against. And withal Thaine Aydelot was very proud and unaccustomed to
being denied what he chose to want very much.

"Leigh, will you do two things for me?" he asked at length. The sad, quiet
tone was unlike Thaine Aydelot.

"If I can," Leigh answered.

"First, will you promise me that if you want me you will send for me. If
you ever find--oh, Leigh, ever is such a long word. If you ever think you
can care enough for me to let me come back to you, you will let me know."

"When I send you the little sunflower letter Prince Quippi never answered
you may come back," Leigh said lightly, but the tears were too near for
the promise to seem trivial. "What is the other thing?"

"I want you just once to let me kiss you, Leigh. It's our good-by kiss
forever. Hereafter we are only friends, old chums, you know. Will you let
me be your lover for one minute up here on the Purple Notches, where the
whole world lies around us and nobody knows our secret? Please, Leigh.
Then I'll go away and be a man somewhere in the big world that's always
needing men."

Leigh leaned toward him, and he held her close as he kissed her red lips.
In all the stormy days that followed the memory of that moment was with
him. A moment when love, in all its purity and joy, knew its first
realization.

The next day Leigh Shirley made butter all the morning, and in the
afternoon she tried to retouch her sketch of sunflowers as she had seen
the shadows dull the brightness of their petals in the valley below the
Purple Notches.

The same day Thaine Aydelot left home for the winter, taking the memory of
the most sacred moment of his life with him out into the big world that is
always needing men.

CHAPTER XVIII

REMEMBERING THE MAINE

The Twentieth Kansas was fortunate in opportunity,
and heroic in action, and