sured for himself, so that
in a moment he was at her side, and had her in his arms. She made no
effort to free herself as she had done in the cottonwoods, but turned
her mouth up for him to kiss, and then hid her face against his
shoulder--while he, fighting vainly to find utterance for the thousand
words in his throat, stood stroking her hair, and then buried his face
in it, crying out at last in the warm sweetness of it that he loved her,
and was going to fight for her, and that no power on earth could take
her away from him now. And these things he repeated until she raised her
flushed face from his breast, and let him kiss her lips once more, and
then freed herself gently from his arms.

CHAPTER XXIII

For a Space they stood apart, and in the radiant loveliness of Mary
Standish's face and in Alan's quiet and unimpassioned attitude were
neither shame nor regret. In a moment they had swept aside the barrier
which convention had raised against them, and now they felt the
inevitable thrill of joy and triumph, and not the humiliating
embarrassment of dishonor. They made no effort to draw a curtain upon
their happiness, or to hide the swift heart-beat of it from each other.
It had happened, and they were glad. Yet they stood apart, and something
pressed upon Alan the inviolableness of the little freedom of space
between them, of its sacredness to Mary Standish, and darker and deeper
grew the glory of pride and faith that lay with the love in her eyes
when he did not cross it. He reached out his hand, and freely she gave
him her own. Lips blushing with his kisses trembled in a smile, and she
bowed her head a little, so that he was looking at her smooth hair, soft
and sweet where he had caressed it a few moments before.

"I thank God!" he said.

He did not finish the surge of gratitude that was in his heart. Speech
seemed trivial, even futile. But she understood. He was not thanking
God for that moment, but for a lifetime of something that at last had
come to him. This, it seemed to him, was the end, the end of a world as
he had known it, the beginning of a new. He stepped back, and his hands
trembled. For something to do he set up the overturned table, and Mary
Standish watched him with a quiet, satisfied wonder. She loved him, and
she had come into his arms. She had given him her lips to kiss. And he
laughed softly as he came to her side again, and looked over the tundra
where Rossland had gone.

"How long befor