't you love me, Don? Why, I love you--so
much!"

"My God, don't!" he groaned. "Don't! I can't stand everything. But I
can't take anything but the best and truest sort of love."

"Isn't mine?"

"No. It's pity, maybe--I can't tell. This is no place for us to talk of
that now. You must go away. I hope you will forget you ever saw me. I
don't even know my father's name--I don't know whether he is living--I
don't know anything! I have been walled in all my life--I'm walled in
now. I never ought to have touched even the hem of your garment, for I
wasn't fit. But I couldn't help it."

"That's the trouble," said Anne. "I can't help it, either."

"Ah!" he half groaned, "you ought to be kept from yourself."

"Kept from myself, Don? If that were true of all the women in the world,
how much world would there be left? That's why I'm here--why, Don, I had
to come!"

"Anne! It can't be. It's only cruel for you to tear me up by coming
here--by staying here--by standing here. I love you! Anne! Anne! I don't
see how it could be hard as this for any man to part from any woman." He
was trembling through all his strong frame now.

"But we promised!"

"The law says that a promise is such only when two minds meet. Our minds
never met--I didn't know the facts--you didn't know about me--we have
just found out about it now."

"Our minds didn't meet?" said Anne Oglesby. "Our _minds_? Did not our
_hearts_ meet--don't they meet now--and isn't _that_ what it all means
between a man and a woman?"

He stood, trembling, apart from her in the twilight.

"Don't!" he whispered. "I love you! I will love you all my life! You
must go away. Oh, go now, go quickly!"

A merciful footfall sounded on the stone floor of the outer hall. The
door opened, letting in a shaft of light with it. Cowles stood
hesitating, looking at the two young people, still separated, standing
wretchedly.

"I hate to say anything," said the sheriff, "but I reckon----"

"She must go," said Don Lane. "Take her away. Good-by--Anne! Anne! Oh,
good-by!"

"Won't you kiss me, Don?" said Anne Oglesby--"when I love you so much?"

There were four tears, two great, sudden drops from each eye, that
sprang now on Dan Cowles' wrinkled, sunburned cheeks.

But Don Lane had cast himself down once more on the pallet and was
trying with all his power to be silent until after she had gone.

"In some ways," said Dan Cowles to his wife later that night, "he's got
me guessing, that yo