this life than what you
want most. _You_ didn't place yourself in this fix. So if you meet it
with courage an' faithfulness to yourself, why, it'll not turn out as
you dread.... Some day, if you ever think you're broken-hearted, I'll
tell you my story. An' then you'll not think your lot so hard. For I've
had a broken heart an' ruined life, an' yet I've lived on an' on,
findin' happiness I never dreamed would come, fightin' or workin'. An'
how I found the world beautiful, an' how I love the flowers an' hills
an' wild things so well--that, just that would be enough to live for!...
An' think, lass, of what a wonderful happiness will come to me in
showin' all this to you. That'll be the crownin' glory. An' if it's that
much to me, then you be sure there's nothin' on earth I won't do
for you."

Columbine lifted her tear-stained face with a light of inspiration.

"Oh, Wilson was right!" she murmured. "You are Heaven-sent! And I'm
going to love you!"

CHAPTER IX

A new spirit, or a liberation of her own, had fired Columbine, and was
now burning within her, unquenchable and unutterable. Some divine spark
had penetrated into that mysterious depth of her, to inflame and to
illumine, so that when she arose from this hour of calamity she felt
that to the tenderness and sorrow and fidelity in her soul had been
added the lightning flash of passion.

"Oh, Ben--shall I be able to hold onto this?" she cried, flinging wide
her arms, as if to embrace the winds of heaven.

"This what, lass?" he asked.

"This--this _woman!_" she answered, passionately, with her hands
sweeping back to press her breast.

"No woman who wakes ever goes back to a girl again," he said, sadly.

"I wanted to die--and now I want to live--to fight.... Ben, you've
uplifted me. I was little, weak, miserable.... But in my dreams, or in
some state I can't remember or understand, I've waited for your very
words. I was ready. It's as if I knew you in some other world, before I
was born on this earth; and when you spoke to me here, so
wonderfully--as my mother might have spoken--my heart leaped up in
recognition of you and your call to my womanhood!... Oh, how strange and
beautiful!"

"Miss Collie," he replied, slowly, as he bent to his saddle-straps,
"you're young, an' you've no understandin' of what's strange an'
terrible in life. An' beautiful, too, as you say.... Who knows? Maybe in
some former state I was somethin' to you. I believe in that. Reckon I