our silence prayer.
Her pride protects her, but she strains for the word which does not
come. She has never been quite sure, and I thank God for that. Hester
has been fearing somewhat, and she has been doubting, and it is this
that may save her when the night sets in and the storm breaks over her
head.

You, too, are thankful that her instincts served her true and that she
never quite accepted the gift that seemed to have been proffered?

You have a right to demand the reason for my renewed attack. It is
because I have learned the strength of her love. "You are blessed beyond
words," I said two days ago, but as you reject the blessing, Hester must
know it and you must tell her. Herbert, I am your friend.

DANE KEMPTON.

XXXVI

FROM HERBERT WACE TO DANE KEMPTON

THE RIDGE,
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.
November 29, 19--.

What a flutter of letters! And what a fluttery Dane Kempton it is! The
wine of our western sunshine has bitten into your blood and you are
grown over-warm. I am glad that you and Hester have found each other so
quickly and intimately; glad that you are under her charm, as I know her
to be under yours; but I am not glad when you spell yourself into her
and write out your heart's forebodings on her heart. For you are
strangely morbid, and you are certainly guilty of reading your own
doubts and fears into her unspoken and unguessed thoughts.

Believe me, rather than the soul of her love seeming narrower than she
hopes, the truth is she gives her love little thought at all. She is
too busy--and too sensible. Like me, she has not the time. We are
workers, not dreamers; and the minutes are too full for us to lavish
them on an eternal weighing and measuring of heart throbs.

Besides, Hester is too large for that sort of stuff. She is the last
woman in the world to peer down at the scales to see if she is getting
full value. We leave that to the lesser creatures, who spend their
courtship loudly protesting how unutterable, immeasurable, and
inextinguishable is their love, as though, forsooth, each dreaded lest
the other deem it a bad bargain. We do not bargain and chaffer over our
feelings, Hester and I. Surely you mistake, and stir storms in teacups.

"Be outspoken," you say. If my conscience were not clear, I should be
troubled by that. As it is, what have I hidden? What sharp business have
I driven? And who is it that cried "cheated!"? Be outspoken--about what,
pray?

You bid me tell her what