e other women in my
life, but, one by one, I measured them up to the standard of you, and
they became nothing. I remember once, at the club, they brought me two
letters, one from you and one from another woman. It was the one in
which you wrote, _'I have not forgotten, I do not wish to forget. I want
to make of myself so great a woman that some day he may say, with pride,
"Once that woman loved me."'_ I disliked to know that your white letter
had even touched the other one, and that night the man I hope to make of
myself was born. If there be any achievement in my life that is worth
while, if I ever count for anything in the world's work, it is you who
have done it, you and the letters which you blame me so much for
permitting you to write."

She turned toward him, her face flushed and divinely illumined, anger
forgotten. "You mean it?" she said.

"As God hears, it is the truth."

"Then," she paused, "I am happier than I thought it possible I should
ever be in this life!"

"And you forgive me?"

"There is nothing to forgive."

"That gives me courage to go on," he said. "Do you remember," he put his
hand over hers as he spoke, and they both went back in thought to the
time he had laid his hand over hers on the fallen tree, the night of
their first meeting, "do you remember, Katrine, that when an alliance is
to be arranged for a great queen, it is she who must indicate her choice
and her willingness. You have become that, Katrine, a great queen! I'm
asking, with more humility in my heart than you can ever know, that you
choose--me!"

As she looked at him, her eyes were incredulous. "Don't let us talk of
such a thing," she said, abruptly, turning her small hand upward to meet
his in a friendly clasp.

"But, Katrine, it is the only thing in the world I care to talk about.
Oh," he said, "I know how hard it is for you, that you are going to make
it hard for me, that you are not going to believe me, nor in me. But,
whether you believe it or not, it is the white truth I tell you, that
ever since the first night I saw you I loved you, and wanted you for my
wife."

She sat on the brown rocks, her knees clasped in her slender arms,
looking through the sea-mist at the sun going down behind the Magnolia
Hills.

"Don't let us talk of it," she said, decisively; "the thing is utterly
impossible. Tell me about yourself instead: the new railroad; the work;
and Dermott McDermott." He turned, looking up at her curiously befor