in
these hills were not to be mentioned. But don't worry; the sheep won't
tell--and I won't."

He was silent for a moment as he thought out the words of what he wished
to say to her. The sun was dipping down into the hills; the mellow air
was still; the voice of a negro singing as he crossed a distant field
stole sweetly upon them.

"Shirley!"

He touched her hand.

"Shirley!" and his fingers closed upon hers.

"I love you, Shirley! From those days when I saw you in Paris,--before
the great Gettysburg battle picture, I loved you. You had felt the cry of
the Old World, the story that is in its battle-fields, its beauty and
romance, just as I had felt the call of this new and more wonderful
world. I understood--I knew what was in your heart; I knew what those
things meant to you;--but I had put them aside; I had chosen another life
for myself. And the poor life that you saved, that is yours if you will
take it. I have told your father and Baron von Marhof that I would not
take the fortune my father left me; I would not go back there to be
thanked or to get a ribbon to wear in my coat. But my name, the name I
bore as a boy and disgraced in my father's eyes,--his name that he made
famous throughout the world, the name I cast aside with my youth, the
name I flung away in anger,--they wish me to take that."

She withdrew her hand and rose and looked away toward the western hills.

"The greatest romance in the world is here, Shirley. I have dreamed it
all over,--in the Canadian woods, on the Montana ranch as I watched the
herd at night. My father spent his life keeping a king upon his throne;
but I believe there are higher things and finer things than steadying a
shaking throne or being a king. And the name that has meant nothing to me
except dominion and power,--it can serve no purpose for me to take it
now. I learned much from the poor Archduke; he taught me to hate the sham
and shame of the life he had fled from. My father was the last great
defender of the divine right of kings; but I believe in the divine right
of men. And the dome of the Capitol in Washington does not mean to me
force or hatred or power, but faith and hope and man's right to live and
do and be whatever he can make himself. I will not go back or take the
old name unless,--unless you tell me I must, Shirley!"

There was an instant in which they both faced the westering sun. He
looked down suddenly and the deep feeling in his heart went to his lip