stled
among the laurels; inside, by the beautiful barbarous light of the
flaring pine-knots on the hearth, two talkers, at least, found the hours
fly swiftly.

When these two bade each other good-night it was only natural that they
should reach the point toward which they had been veering for twelve
months.

Miss Thorne remained in the room, drawing nearer the fire with an
amiable little shiver, well excused by the mountain coolness, but
Rebecca was beguiled into stepping out into the moonlight The brightness
of the moon and the blackness of the shadows cast by trees and rocks and
undergrowth, seemed somehow to heighten the effect of the intense and
utter stillness reigning around them,--even the occasional distant cry
of some wandering wild creature marked, rather than broke in upon, the
silence. Rebecca's glance about her was half nervous.

"It is very beautiful," she said, "and it moves one strongly; but I
am not sure that it is not, in some of one's moods, just a little
oppressive."

It is possible Lennox did not hear her. He was looking down at her with
eager eyes. Suddenly he had caught her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"You know why I am here, Rebecca," he said. "Surely, all my hoping is
not vain?"

She looked pale and a little startled; but she lifted her face and did
not draw herself away.

"Is it?" he asked again. "Have I come on a hopeless errand?"

"No," she answered. "You have not."

His words came freely enough then and with fire. When Rebecca reentered
the cabin her large eyes shone in her small, sweet face, and her lips
wore a charming curve.

Miss Thorne turned in her chair to look at her and was betrayed into a
smile.

"Mr. Lennox has gone, of course," she said.

"Yes."

Then, after a brief silence, in which Rebecca pushed the pine-knots with
her foot, the elder lady spoke again.

"Don't you think you may as well tell me about it, Beck, my child?" she
said.

Beck looked down and shook her head with very charming gravity.

"Why should I?" she asked. "When--when you know."

Lennox rode his mildly disposed but violently gaited steed homeward
in that reposeful state of bliss known only to accepted lovers. He had
plucked his flower at last; he was no longer one of the many; he was
ecstatically content. Uncertainty had no charm for him, and he was by no
means the first discoverer of the subtle fineness her admirers found so
difficult to describe in Miss Noble. Granted that she was