with you, I've found myself. I've learned to think while I was dreaming.
I never troubled myself about God. But God, or some wonderful spirit,
has whispered to me here. I absolutely deny the truth of what you say
about yourself. I can't explain it. There are things too deep to tell.
Whatever the terrible wrongs you've suffered, God holds you blameless.
I see that--feel that in you every moment you are near me. I've a
mother and a sister 'way back in Illinois. If I could I'd take you to
them--to-morrow."

"If it were true! Oh, I might--I might lift my head!" she cried.

"Lift it then--you child. For I swear it's true."

She did lift her head with the singular wild grace always a part of her
actions, with that old unconscious intimation of innocence which always
tortured Venters, but now with something more--a spirit rising from the
depths that linked itself to his brave words.

"I've been thinking--too," she cried, with quivering smile and swelling
breast. "I've discovered myself--too. I'm young--I'm alive--I'm so
full--oh! I'm a woman!"

"Bess, I believe I can claim credit of that last discovery--before you,"
Venters said, and laughed.

"Oh, there's more--there's something I must tell you."

"Tell it, then."

"When will you go to Cottonwoods?"

"As soon as the storms are past, or the worst of them."

"I'll tell you before you go. I can't now. I don't know how I shall
then. But it must be told. I'd never let you leave me without knowing.
For in spite of what you say there's a chance you mightn't come back."

Day after day the west wind blew across the valley. Day after day the
clouds clustered gray and purple and black. The cliffs sang and the
caves rang with Oldring's knell, and the lightning flashed, the thunder
rolled, the echoes crashed and crashed, and the rains flooded the
valley. Wild flowers sprang up everywhere, swaying with the lengthening
grass on the terraces, smiling wanly from shady nooks, peeping
wondrously from year-dry crevices of the walls. The valley bloomed
into a paradise. Every single moment, from the breaking of the gold bar
through the bridge at dawn on to the reddening of rays over the western
wall, was one of colorful change. The valley swam in thick, transparent
haze, golden at dawn, warm and white at noon, purple in the twilight. At
the end of every storm a rainbow curved down into the leaf-bright forest
to shine and fade and leave lingeringly some faint essence of its rosy
iris