dows stretch, open to wind and
sun, westwards to the sea, but beneath the great black pines it is dim
and shadowy, and Seaforth was glad of that as he stood leaning against
a hemlock one sunny afternoon. He would have found the task he had
undertaken almost impossible in the glare of the white road that ran
straight under the open sky, but the stillness of that green realm of
shadow where all things were softened in the faint half-light had made
it a trifle easier. Also, the essence of the spring, which had come
suddenly, was in the scent of pine and cedar, and it had given him
courage, and set his pulses throbbing faster. It is possible that the
man did not realize all the influences that upheld him then, but
something that sprang from the steaming earth and the life that was
stirring in every towering pine reacted upon him, and he gathered hope
when he saw the reflex of it in the eyes of his companion.

She sat a pace or two apart from him on a cedar-trunk, and a dusty
bicycle rested against the farther end of it. The dust was also thick
upon her simple dress and the cotton gloves that lay in her hands. Her
fingers had tightened upon them, and there was a flush in her cheeks
when for a moment she glanced at the man. His face was a trifle
colourless, but the girl looked aside again as she saw the tense
anxiety in his eyes.

"And that is all," he said, with a little tremble in his voice. "You
will think it is horribly too much?"

Nellie Townshead glanced away into the shadows of the bush, and there
was pain and a trace of shrinking in her face, but it had vanished when
she turned again, and her voice had a little imperious ring.

"And what made you tell me now?"

Seaforth spread his hands out with a little deprecatory gesture. "I
expected this. The story I have told you should have shown you what I
am--and while I wanted to tell it earlier I was afraid."

The colour was a trifle plainer in the cheeks of the girl, and her
voice slightly more imperious still.

"That leaves the question unanswered. I still want to know what gave
you the courage now?"

Seaforth understood her, and knew her pride. "I think Harry gave me
some of it. You see, I never had a great deal."

"Harry?" said Miss Townshead, with a trace of astonishment that was not
quite free from disdain.

Seaforth moved his head. "Yes," he said. "What I have told you I told
him, and he seemed to think that one could live--even that kind of