run toward her.

"I heard--I followed!" she gasped, and the next moment was sobbing in
his arms.

All his talk to her for a long time was incoherent babbling of love and
remorse. Then he held her close.

"Little girl," he said, "I've learned in the world outside. I've learned
many things. But this--this I've learned bitterly and forever! There's
love of fame and of power and of mere beauty--but there's only one love
after all--that's the love that gives all, is all--that's my love for
you and the love I think you have for me. It is ours--that love. Oh, my
sweetheart, how we will cherish it all the years through!"

After a time he drew her down on the steps and they sat in silence
through long minutes, listening to the muted calling of the crickets in
the grasses, the rustle of the river current, all the soft noises of the
summer night.

Then he bethought himself and drew Madeleine Presson's letter from his
pocket. He gave it to her with a word of explanation.

Looking into his eyes, her own eyes brilliant as stars, she slowly tore
the letter to bits and scattered the snowy fragments upon the grass.

"A woman does know," she said; "knows without reading what some other
woman writes. I do not need her words, Big Boy. I know of my own heart.
I knew long ago. I listened too readily to others. I have listened to my
own love since. I have been waiting for you to come."

After another silence which needed no words to interpret it, he rose and
lifted her to her feet. With his arm about her he walked to his horse.
He mounted and drew her up, and she clung to him, as maid to knight.

"So, to your father now," he told her.

"But not to speak to him harshly," she said, a ripple of merriment in
her voice, "for I'll tell you a secret. He did not try to stop me when I
ran away--he even called after me, 'He's turned in at the church, you
wild banshee!' They have told him things that have given him new
respect for Harlan Thornton. But your grandfather?"

"He has learned that my love is my own affair, along with my politics."

"Let me do my part, Harlan," she said, proudly. "Love will light the
waiting, and it will not seem waiting. When I take my place at your side
he shall not be able to say that I am not the wife for you."

"It's enough for me to-night that I love you and you love me. The years
must take care of themselves. Love will mark off the calendar for us,
little sweetheart, not in months or in years, but in one