eing, for, strong man that he was, he was as
much ashamed of them as of a secret sin. How could he open those
joy-tied lips of his and tell her how he felt--how he had felt since his
first sight of her? He tried to summon words that would be adequate, and
failed utterly. But Tilly knew. She seemed to gather a knowledge of his
emotions from the very moonlit silence that pervaded the fields and the
woods around them.

Suddenly she began to quicken her step. "We must walk faster," she said,
sighing, as one in joyous slumber about to wake. "Mother and father may
hear the buggies passing and think we ought to be home earlier. You see,
it is Saturday night, and if I'm out after midnight father says it is
breaking the Sabbath and is angry."

The house was still, save for a lamp burning in the hall, when they
arrived home. He helped her lock the front door, insisted on giving her
the lamp, and with a lighted match made his way up to his room. He had
not said good night to her. He remembered that with twinges of
self-contempt as he stood undressing in his room and heard Cavanaugh
snoring across the hall. Why had he overlooked it, he wondered. Why did
he have to be instructed on such matters like a little child learning to
walk, when they came so naturally to Tilly, to Joel Eperson and others?

He frowned as he jerked his necktie and gave up the problem. He would
tell her when he saw her that he was sorry for the oversight. How could
he tell her that it was partly due to his dazed happiness over what she
had said about not loving Eperson?

He tumbled into bed, but could not sleep for a long time. Cavanaugh
snored like the roar of a distant sawmill, but that didn't matter. The
events of the evening were unreeling in a series of mind-pictures filled
with lights and shadows and culminating in the blinding revelation of a
single fact--the fact that Joel Eperson had cause for his present gloom.
John knew that he himself was unlike the people he was meeting for the
first time in his life, and he was sure that he could never be as they
were, but he had come upon the marvelous belief that he and Tilly were
meant for each other. Somehow, by some intent of Fate, they were
destined to breast the world side by side, arm in arm, as they had
walked the dusty road that night. He was conscious of many stupid
shortcomings on his part, but she would overlook them. Indeed, she was
overlooking them already. Finally he slept, and, of all absurditi