ill had tender pink leaves at the extremities of
branches; and the trail looked wild and fresh as if that hour tunnelled
through the wilderness. Sunset tried to penetrate western stretches with
level shafts, but none reached the darkening path where twilight already
purpled the hollows.

The night coolness was like respite after burning pain. Maurice wondered
how close he might draw this changeful girl to him without again
losing her. He had compared her to a wild sweetbrier-rose. She was a
hundred-leaved rose, hiding innumerable natures in her depths.

They passed the dead pines, crossed the rotten log, and came silently
within sight of the Indian on the trail, but neither of them noted it.
The Indian stood stencilled against a background of primrose light, his
bow magnified.

It was here that Maurice felt the slight elastic body sag upon his arm.

"I am tired," said Lily. "I have been working so hard to amuse your
friends!"

"Would that I were my friends!" responded Maurice. He said, silently: "I
love you! I wonder if I shall ever learn to love you less?"

The unspoken appeal of her swaying figure put him off his guard, and he
found himself holding her, the very depths of his passion rushing out
with the force of lava.

"It is you I want!--the you that is not any other person on earth or in
the universe! Whatever it is--the identity--the spirit--that is you--the
you that was mated with me in other lives--that I have
sought--will seek--must have, whatever the price in time and
anguish!--understand!--there is nobody but you!"

Tears oozed from under her closed lids. She lay in his arms passive, as
in a half-swoon.

"You do the talking," she breathed. "I do the loving!"

Without opening her eyes she met him with her perfect mouth, and
gave herself to him in a kiss. He understood a spirit so passionately
reticent that it denied to itself its own inward motions. The wilfulness
of a solitary exalted nature melted in that kiss. All the soft curves of
her face concealed and belied the woman who opened "her wild blue
eyes and looked at him, passionately adoring, fierce for her own, yet
doubtful of fate.

"If I let you know that I loved you all I do, you would tire of me!"

"How can you say I could ever tire of you?"

"I know it! When you are not quite sure of me, you love me best!"

Maurice laughed against her lips. "You said that was the Indian on the
trail--my never being quite sure of you! Will you take an