and the future is away
beyond us. Everything you say and everything I have in my mind is
absurd, no matter how agreeable it may be. Do you care enough for me to
desert your comrades and fling your principles to the four winds? Do I
care enough for you to leave my people and give my sympathies to your
side?" She was smiling as she spoke, but I knew that she was very
serious, and I made no reply. "I am going to tell you the simple
truth," she went on. "I do care enough for you to leave everything for
your sake, for there can be no real love where there is not a
willingness to sacrifice all---- Oh, I don't know why women are
compelled to make all the sacrifices."

"She not only does that," I replied, "but she is compelled to bear the
burden of them alone. Ordinarily, man is a hindrance rather than a
help, but I am here to help you."

"Then help me in the right way," she implored.

"I will," I replied; "but here is an argument that is worth all the
rest," and with that I drew her to me and pressed my lips to hers. She
made no resistance whatever, but somehow the argument did not appeal to
her reason.

"I could kiss you twice ten thousand times," she declared, "but facts
would remain the same. I have heard that your people have great notions
of honor, and I hope it is true in your case."

Well, it was only too true, and I knew it, but, manlike, I must take
some reprisal from the truth. "Your mother told me," I said, "that you
have a great knack of hurting those you love."

She leaned against me with a sigh. "If I thought that the truth could
really hurt you," she declared, "I should never be happy again in this
world, but it is something else that hurts, and it is hurting me a
great deal worse than it is hurting you."

I suppose I am not the only man in the world that has been caught in
the desert that sometimes stretches its barren wastes between love and
duty. I knew that if I but held out my hand to this little woman she
would give up all, and, assuredly, had she held out her hand to me I
should have flung duty to the winds. But she was of a different mould.
The only comfort I had at the moment was in feeling that the sacrifice
was mutual.

I longed for her brother to ride up behind us, so that I might still be
a prisoner, but she had provided against that. I realized at last that
I had never been regarded as a prisoner. I should have been grateful,
but I was not--at least, not at the moment. If, as has been sai