t a sin to love you."

"And if I tell you--if I confess that it is a sin, that I lied back
there--then will you go?" she demanded quickly.

Her eyes flamed on him with a strange light.

"No," he said calmly. "I would not believe you."

"But it is the truth. I lied--lied terribly to you. I have sinned even
more terribly, and--and you must go. Don't you understand me now? If
some one should come--and find you here--"

"There would be a fight," he said grimly. "I have come prepared to
fight." He waited a moment, and in the silence the brown head in front
of him dropped slowly and he saw a tremor pass through the slender form,
as if it had been torn by an instant's pain. The pallor had gone from
Howland's face. The mute surrender in the bowed head, the soft sobbing
notes that he heard now in the girl's breath, the confession that he
read in her voiceless grief set his heart leaping, and again he drew her
close into his arms and turned her face up to his own. There was no
resistance now, no words, no pleading for him to go; but in her eyes he
saw the prayerful entreaty with which she had come to him on the Wekusko
trail, and in the quivering red mouth the same torture and love and
half-surrender that had burned themselves into his soul there. Love,
triumph, undying faith shone in his eyes, and he crushed her face closer
until the lovely mouth lay pouted like a crimson rose for him to kiss.

"You--you told me something that wasn't true--once--back there," he
whispered, "and you promised that you wouldn't do it again. You haven't
sinned--in the way that I mean, and in the way that you want me to
believe." His arms tightened still more about her, and his voice was
suddenly filled with a tense quick eagerness. "Why don't you tell me
everything?" he asked. "You believe that if I knew certain things I
would never want to see you again, that I would go back into the South.
You have told me that. Then--if you want me to go--why don't you reveal
these things to me? If you can't do that, go with me to-night. We will
go anywhere--to the ends of the earth--"

He stopped at the look that had come into her face. Her eyes were turned
to the window. He saw them filled with a strange terror, and
involuntarily his own followed them to where the storm was beating
softly against the window-pane. Close to the lighted glass was pressed a
man's face. He caught a flashing glimpse of a pair of eyes staring in
at them, of a thick, wild beard w