sed
on the outskirts of the wood below the crags while one might count ten,
then turned and flitted back into the darkness from whence it came. They
beneath the crags did not see it.

Suddenly Landless raised his head. Upon his face was the look of one who
has come through much doubt and anguish of spirit to an immutable
resolve. He looked to the priming of his gun and laid it upon the rock
beside him, together with his powderhorn and pouch of bullets. Raising
himself to his knees he gazed long and intently into the forest below.
There was no sign of danger. On the checkered ground beneath two mighty
oaks squirrels were playing together like frolicsome kittens, and
through the clear air came the tapping of a woodpecker. The forest was
silent as to the shadow that had flitted through it. It can keep a
secret very well.

Landless sank back against the rock. He had lost much blood, and that
and the pain of his mangled foot turned him faint and sick for minutes
at a time. He clenched his teeth and forced back the deadly faintness,
then turned to the woman who stood beside him, her hands clasped before
her, her eyes following the declining sun, her lips sometimes set in
mournful curves, sometimes murmuring broken and inaudible words of
prayer. He called her twice before she answered, turning to him with
eyes of feverish splendor which saw and yet saw not. "What is it?" she
asked dreamily.

"Come back to earth, madam," he said. "There is that that I wish to say
to you. Listen to me kindly and pitifully, as to a dying man."

"I am listening," she answered. "What is it?"

"It is this, madam: I love you. For God's sake don't turn away! Oh, I
know that I should have been strong to the end, that I should not vex
you thus! It is the coward's part I play, perhaps, but I must speak! I
cannot die without. I love you, I love you, I love you!"

His voice rose into a cry; in it rang long repressed passion, hopeless
adoration, fierce joy in having broken the bonds of silence. He spoke
rapidly, thickly, with a stammering tongue, now throwing out his hands
in passionate appeal, now crushing between his fingers the dried moss
and twigs with which the ground was strewn. "I loved you the day I first
saw you. I have loved you ever since. I love you now. My God! how I love
you! Die for you? I would die for you ten thousand times! I would _live_
for you! Oh, the day I first saw you! I was in hell and I looked at you
as lost Dives might hav