d kicked the stirrups free and was riding with
loose rein.

When a man tells a woman that he is down and out financially and dare
not ask her to marry him, do you think there is an end of it, dear
reader? Do you think a Silenus would hesitate and stickle and scruple
over a point of honor; though some of us have seen Silenus blunder into
a paradise which he promptly transformed into a sty? And do you think
the descendant of the Man of the Iron Hand thought anything less of her
lover for refusing to accept renunciation as his right? If Wayland
could have trusted himself to look at her, he would have seen that she
was riding with a whimsical smile. They came to a bend in the upward
climbing trail that overlooked the Valley and faced the opal shining
peak.

"There goes the buckboard," remarked Wayland.

"Dick," she said, "I'll write my lawyer about placing the loan in the
bank at once. You need not lose any time."

"But, I can't take that, Eleanor! I haven't any security on earth to
offer you."

"Oh, yes you have! I've thought all that out, too. You have the very
best security I ever want."

"What?" asked Wayland incredulously. "Do you mean you trust to my
honesty? Good intentions aren't usually a banking proposition--"

"You will do as security," she said.

Was it the old mountain talking again; or was it the break in her
voice? Their eyes met. He had slipped from his horse.

"Don't," she cried averting her eyes with a tremor in her voice. "I
couldn't bear This to be of Self! If I were a man, you'd shake hands
with me and call it a bargain. Look Dick! We're in the light of the
Cross! Shake hands with me! Is it a bargain?"

His hands closed over both of hers. There were tears in his eyes. He
did not break out with any of the wild terms that had clamored and
clamored for utterance these weeks past. He did not say any of the
things that men and women say at such times in books and plays. They
paused so, she on horseback, he standing at her side, on the crest of
the Ridge gazing down on the Valley in the light of the Cross.

"So my old Mountain is talking to you, too?" she said. "Do you
remember, Dick?"

"It's so God-blessed beautiful, Eleanor," he answered. "I can't thank
you! If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't live out my thanks. I
could only put up a bluff of trying."

"Dick the nth," she laughed whimsically, "Dick the nth for the United
States of the World."

Suddenly he lo