urse to get more beforehand wi' money as years
go) ye will have more interest and--"

"Marry!" interrupted the girl, not strongly, but speaking in faint
wonder, as if echoing a word she did not quite understand.

"Yes," he went on with great kindliness, "I talked it over with your
father before he went, and he was pleased. I told him that, in a year or
two, if he liked it, I would marry ye--it's only if ye _like_, of
course; and ye'd better not think about it now, for ye're too young."

"Marry me!" This time the exclamation came from her with a force that
was appalling to him. The coarse handkerchief which she had been holding
to her eyes was withdrawn, and with lips and eyes open she exclaimed
again: "Marry me! _You_!"

It was remarkable how this man, who so far was using, and through long
years had always used, only the tone of mentor, now suddenly began to
try to justify himself with almost childlike timidity.

"Your father and I didn't know of any one else hereabouts that would
suit, and of course we knew ye would naturally be disappointed if ye
didn't marry." He went on muttering various things about the convenience
of such an arrangement.

She listened to nothing more than his first sentence, and began to move
away from him slowly a few steps backwards; then, perceiving that she
had come to the brink of the level ground, she turned and suddenly
stretched out her arm with almost frantic longing toward the cold, grey
lake and the dark hills behind, where the fires of the west still
struggled with the encroaching November night.

As she turned there was light enough for him to see how bright the
burning colour of her hair was--bright as the burning copper glow on the
lower feathers of those great shadowy wings of cloud--the wings of night
that were enfolding the dying day. Some idea, gathered indefinitely from
both the fierceness of her gesture and his transient observation of the
colour of her hair, suggested to him that he had trodden on the sacred
ground of a passionate heart.

Poor man! He would have been only too glad just then to have effaced his
foot-prints if he had had the least idea how to do it. The small shawl
she wore fell from her unnoticed as she went quickly into the house. He
picked it up, and folded it awkwardly, but with meditative care. It was
a square of orange-coloured merino, such as pedlars who deal with the
squaws always carry, an ordinary thing for a settler's child to possess.
As h