-I remember!" he answered.

"It was like that to-night," the young lover went on. "And I could not
stop myself. I told her I loved her--and she said she wanted me to love
her--and we kissed each other."

Big Tom got up and stood before the open window. His hands were thrust
deep into his pockets and he stared out at the beauty of the night.

"Good Lord!" he said. "That's what _ought_ to come to every man that
lives--but it doesn't."

Rupert poured forth his confession, restrained no more.

"From that first night when I rode through the mountains over the white
road and stopped at your gate--since I looked up and saw her standing on
the balcony with the narcissus in her hair it has always been the same
thing. It began that very moment--it was there when she leaned forward
and spoke to me. I had never thought of a woman before--I was too poor
and sad and lonely and young. And there she was--all white--and it seemed
as if she was _mine_."

Tom nodded his head as if to a white rose-bush in the small garden.

"I am as poor as ever I was," said Rupert. "I am a beggar if we lose our
claim; but I am not sad, and I am not lonely--I can't be--I can't be! I
am happy--everything's happy--because she knows--and I have kissed her."

"What did you think I would say when you told me?" Tom asked.

"I don't know," impetuously; "but I knew I must come to you. It seems a
million years ago since that hot morning in the old garden at
Delisleville--when I had never seen her."

"One of the things I have thought about a good deal," said Tom, with
quite a practical manner, "has been love. I had lots of time to think
over things at the Cross-roads, and I used to work them out as far as my
mind would carry me. Love's as much an element as the rest of them.
There's earth, air, fire, water--and love. It has to be calculated for.
What I've reasoned out is that it has not been calculated for enough.
It's going to _come_ to all of us--and it will either come and stay, and
make the old earth bloom with flowers--or it will come and go, and leave
it like a plain swept by fire. It's not a trivial thing that only boys
and girls play with; it's better--and worse. It ought to be prepared for
and treated well. It's not often treated well. People have got into the
way of expecting trouble and tragedy to come out of it. We are always
hearing of its unhappiness in books. Poets write about it that way."

"I suppose it is often unhappy," said Rupert; "bu