nd the perfume of it went through him like the
whistling flash of the first wild doe he had killed in his first
boyish hunt and which he never forgot.

"You do love me," she said at last, looking up into his face, where
her head rested. She could not move because his arm held her girlish
form to him with an overpowering clasp.

"Why?" he asked, kissing her again and in sheer passionate excess
holding his lips on hers until she could not speak, but only look
love with her eyes. When she could, she sighed and said:

"Because, you could not make me so happy if you didn't."

He relaxed his arm to control the trotters, which were going too fast
down the road. She sat up by his side and went on.

"Do you know I have thought lots about what you said last Saturday
night?"

"Why, what?" he asked.

She looked pained that he had forgotten.

"About--about--our bein' married to each
other--even--even--if--if--there's no preacher. You know--that true
love makes marriages, and not a ceremony--and--and--that the heart is
the priest to all of us, you know!"

Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it.

"One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got back home an'
memorized it--Oh, you can say such beautiful things."

He seized her and kissed her again.

"I am so happy with you--always--" she laughed.

He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river.

"I want you to see how the setting moonlight looks on the river," he
said. "There is nothing in all nature like it. It floats like a
crescent above, falling into the arms of its companion below. All
nature is love and never fails to paint a love scene in preference
to all others, if permitted. How else can you account for it making
two lover moons fall into each other's arms," he laughed.

She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute which mediocrity
pays to genius.

Presently they passed by Westmoreland, and from Alice's window a
light shone far out into the golden tinged leaves of the beeches
near.

Travis glanced up at it. Then at the pretty mill-girl by his side:

"A star and--a satellite!"--he smiled to himself.

CHAPTER XI

A MIDNIGHT BURIAL

It was growing late when the old preacher left Westmoreland and rode
leisurely back toward the cabin on Sand Mountain. The horse he was
riding--a dilapidated roan--was old and blind, but fox-trotted along
with the easy assurance of having often travelled the same road.

The bridle rested o