wer at once. . . . Up from the sea came the susurrous
voice of the reef whispering its eternal questions.

"Because--men, real men, bear their griefs silently, and alone," he
said at last. "It is their way."

Jean thought of the little fellow, so childish in many ways, but silent
all day on the subject of his loss. He had gone to cry out his grief,
unseen, on Kobuk's grave. . . . Suddenly she loved him with a
tenderness she had never known before, but . . . with it came a new
loneliness. It was as if already his boyish hand and shut her, a
woman, from that place in his heart that only men might know and
understand.

She rested her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin in her hands.

"Oh--o--o," she said, reflectively. "I did not know. I did not dream
. . . men were like that." . . . The hearts of men . . . it was
strangely sweet to know what lay hidden in the hearts of men.

The faint, disembodied cry of a seabird keened across the dusk.
Formless waters stretched away into the wide, beckoning dimness. The
twilight wind was pungent with the strange awakening smell of the sea.
Forgotten now was the depression of the day; it had no place in the
romance, the mystery, the promise of the northern night. She became
suddenly conscious that there was something sublimely beautiful in life
that she had never yet experienced, something that unknowingly she had
been waiting for; something that must come to her at last. . . . She
wondered if the young man sitting so close to her were ever stirred by
such rapturous, intangible thoughts. With quickened interest she
turned to look at him, and met his deep eyes intent on her face.

Somewhat confused, he snapped off the head of the daisy between them.

"I--I was just wondering what you were thinking about, Jean."

"I was thinking about you," she answered candidly. "I was
wondering----"

There came the sound of little running feet on the trail near them, and
the girl rose hastily, calling Loll's name.

"Don't be afraid, honey. It's I--Jean!"

Breathless but relieved at the sight of them, the boy joined them and
the three went slowly down the gulch toward the cabin.

Before the porch Harlan stopped.

"No, I won't go in now," he said in answer to her question.

They stood a moment, a sudden shy silence falling upon them. . . .

"Good-night, Jean." Slim and tall, he stood looking down at her
holding out his hand. Hers went out to meet it and the pressure of