taken possession of
his soul. It did not occur to him in these moments that he had known
this girl for only a few hours, that until to-night he had heard no word
pass from her lips. He was conscious only that in the space of those few
hours something had come into his life which he had never known before;
and a deep longing to tell her this, to take her sweet face between his
hands, as they stood in the gloom of the forest, and to confess to her
that she had become more to him than a passing vision in a strange
wilderness filled him. That night he had forgotten half of the strenuous
lesson he had striven years to master; success, ambition, the mere joy
of achievement, were for the first time sunk under a greater thing for
him--the pulsating, human presence of this girl; and as he looked down
into her face, pleading with him still in its white, silent terror, he
forgot, too, what this woman was or might have been, knowing only that
to him she had opened a new and glorious world filled with a promise
that stirred his blood like sharp wine. He crushed her hands once more
to his breast as he had done on the Great North Trail, holding her so
close that he could feel the throbbing of her bosom against him. He
spoke no word--and still her eyes pleaded with him to go. Suddenly he
freed one of his hands and brushed back the thick hair from her brow and
turned her face gently, until what dim light came down from the stars
above glowed in the beauty of her eyes. In his own face she saw that
which he had not dared to speak, and from her lips there came a soft
little sobbing cry.

"No, I have not promised--and I will not promise," he said, holding her
face so that she could not look away from him. "Forgive me
for--for--doing this--" And before she could move he caught her for a
moment close in his arms, holding her so that he felt the quick beating
of her heart against his own, the sweep of her hair and breath in his
face. "This is why I will not go back," he cried softly. "It is because
I love you--love you--"

He caught himself, choking back the words, and as she drew away from him
her eyes shone with a glory that made him half reach out his arms
to her.

"You will forgive me!" he begged. "I do not mean to do wrong. Only, you
must know why I shall not go back into the South."

From her distance she saw his arms stretched like shadows toward her.
Her voice was low, so low that he could hardly hear the words she spoke,
but its