I thought I
could keep it from you, but I can't. I can't keep it any more----"

Her arm went up and encircled his neck, and she drew his head down to
hers. "Yes, Bill," she told him, "I want you to tell me. I think I
know what it is."

"I love you. That's it; it never was and it never can be anything
else." The words, long pent-up, poured from his lips in a flood.
"Virginia, I love you, love you, love you--my little girl, my little,
little girl----"

She drew his head down and down until her own lips halted the flow of
his words. "And I love you, Bill," she told him. "No one but you."

All the sweetness and tenderness of her glorious and newly wakened love
was in the kiss that she gave him. Yet the man could not believe. The
human soul, condemned to darkness, can never believe at first when the
light breaks through. His heart seemed to halt in his breast in this
instant of infinite suspense.

"You do?" he whispered at last, in inexpressible wonder. "Did you say
that you loved _me_--you so beautiful, so glorious--Don't tell me
that in pity----"

"I love you, Bill," she told him earnestly, then laughed softly at his
disbelief. She kissed him again and again, softly as moonlight falls
upon meadows. The man's heart leaped and flooded, but no more words
would come to his lips. He could only sit with his strong arms ever
holding her closer to his breast, kissing the lips that responded so
tenderly and lingeringly, swept with a rapture undreamed of before.
Ever her soft, warm arm held his lips to hers, as if she could not let
him go.

The seconds, thrilled with a wonder ineffable, passed into minutes.
Virginia had no sensation of pain from her wound. The fear of death
oppressed her no more. She knew that she had come to her appointed
place at last, a haven and shelter no less than that to which the white
ship comes in from the tempestuous sea. This was her fate,--happiness
and peace at last in her woodsman's arms.

* * * * *

They were no different from other lovers such as cling and kiss in the
glory of a summer moon, in gardens far away. Their vows were the same,
the mystery and the wonder no less. The savage realm into which they
were cast could not oppress them now. They forgot the drifts unending,
the winter forests stretching interminably from range to range about
them, the pitiless cold, ever waiting just without the cabin door. Even
impending death itself, in the glory of this night,