twice; but spoke nothing.

"Oh! oh!--please!" she said. Her voice was low and broken, and she spoke
appealingly. Could he not see that he was breaking her heart, while
filling it also with unbearable joy? Why did he not speak and make this
possible, and not leave it a thing to flush her cheeks, and cause her to
feel he had acted on a knowledge he had no right to possess till he had
declared himself in speech? Could he not have spared her that?--This
Christian gentleman, whose worth had compassed these mountains and won
the dwellers among them--it was bitter. Her pride and injured heart rose
up and choked her.

He let go her hand. Now his face was partly turned from her, and she saw
how thin and pale it was. She saw, too, what I had seen during the past
week, that his hair had become almost white about the temples; and the
moveless sadness of his position struck her with unnatural force, so
that, in spite of herself, tears came suddenly to her eyes, and a slight
moan broke from her. She would have run away; but it was too late.

He saw the tears, the look of pity, indignation, pride, and love in her
face.

"My love!" he cried passionately. He opened his arms to her.

But she stood still. He came very close to her, spoke quickly, and
almost despairingly: "Ruth, I love you, and I have wronged you; but here
is your place, if you will come."

At first she seemed stunned, and her face was turned to her mountains,
as though the echo of his words were coming back to her from them, but
the thing crept into her heart and flooded it. She seemed to wake, and
then all her affection carried her into his arms, and she dried her eyes
upon his breast.

After a time he whispered, "My dear, I have wronged you. I should not
have made you care for me."

She did not seem to notice that he spoke of wrong. She said: "I was
yours, Galt, even from the beginning, I think, though I did not quite
know it. I remember what you read in church the first Sunday you came,
and it has always helped me; for I wanted to be good."

She paused and raised her eyes to his, and then with sweet solemnity she
said: "The words were:

"'The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds'
feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places.'"

"Ruth," he answered, "you have always walked on the high places. You
have never failed. And you are as safe as the nest of the eagle, a noble
work of God."

"No, I am not noble; but I shoul