lved to have me
because I seemed unattainable. This is all your love means."

He felt a strong inclination to stoop down and kiss the little lips that
defied him; but he restrained himself. He said, quietly: "And you loved
me--"

"Because you are strong. You are the first man I ever was afraid of.
And"--a dreamy look came into her face--"because I like to experience, I
like to try. You don't understand that."

He smiled.

"Well, since you will not marry me, may I inquire what your intentions
are, the plan you wrote of. You asked me to come and hear it, and I have
come."

"I said, 'Come if you wish.' If you agree to it, well; if not, I marry
on Monday."

"Well?"

She was still looking beyond him at the fire.

"I cannot marry you," she said slowly, "because I cannot be tied; but if
you wish, you may take me away with you, and take care of me; then
when we do not love any more we can say good-bye. I will not go down
country," she added; "I will not go to Europe. You must take me to the
Transvaal. That is out of the world. People we meet there we need not
see again in our future lives."

"Oh, my darling," he said, bending tenderly, and holding his hand out
to her, "why will you not give yourself entirely to me? One day you will
desert me and go to another."

She shook her head without looking at him.

"No, life is too long. But I will go with you."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. I have told them that before daylight I go to the next farm.
I will write from the town and tell them the facts. I do not want them
to trouble me; I want to shake myself free of these old surroundings; I
want them to lose sight of me. You can understand that is necessary for
me."

He seemed lost in consideration; then he said:

"It is better to have you on those conditions than not at all. If you
will have it, let it be so."

He sat looking at her. On her face was the weary look that rested there
so often now when she sat alone. Two months had not passed since
they parted; but the time had set its mark on her. He looked at her
carefully, from the brown, smooth head to the little crossed feet on the
floor. A worn look had grown over the little face, and it made its charm
for him stronger. For pain and time, which trace deep lines and write a
story on a human face, have a strangely different effect on one face and
another. The face that is only fair, even very fair, they mar and flaw;
but to the face whose beauty is the harmony between th