one and I--well, I
wouldn't have presumed to dispute the assertion of anyone in a sheriff
line. It's safer not."

"You asked me not to be hard on little Marta. Who could be? Not even the
man you seem to think me to be. I'll do all in my power to help them to
build a little home in the hills. And she does love him."

"Yes," she said softly. "She does."

He looked at her with a little ache in his throat. The moonlight was full
on her partly averted face; her profile, clear-cut, delicate, was like a
medallion.

"Pen--could you love me?"

The words seemed wrung from him in spite of an apparent determination not
to utter them.

She turned and looked straight into his eyes.

"That isn't what you should ask me, unless, you--"

"I do," he said passionately.

"You didn't--want to."

"No; frankly, I didn't want to; but I did--I do."

"Why?" she asked curiously, watching the fine little lines about his eyes
deepen.

"I've been fighting it since I met you--because--"

"Because I am a thief," she finished unconcernedly. "Do you remember that
night when we were here alone--you started to tell me you loved me, didn't
you?"

"Yes," he admitted slowly.

"Then you _remembered_ what I was, and your love wasn't big enough to let
you finish."

"That wasn't the reason I hesitated," he said quickly, "then or--other
times. The reason I didn't yield to my desire was because I knew it
wouldn't be fair to Jo. Remember, I thought until Marta came that you were
_his_."

She looked her discomfiture.

"I forgot that," she said in a low sympathetic tone.

"No;" he resumed meditatively. "You don't know what a man's love is."

"A man's love," she replied, a slight catch in her voice, "is
infinitesimal compared to a woman's."

"Let me show you, Pen. You shall love me! We'll go far away from here--"

"You're ashamed of me! Jo wouldn't ask Marta to go far away. Your's is a
little love--a love that doesn't dare venture on an uncharted sea."

"Pen," he said tensely, "I tell you that I love you! Don't you
understand?"

He put his arm about her--bent down.

There was a quiet reproach in her star-like eyes as she drew away.

"Pen, will you be my wife?"

She put her hand to her forehead with an odd little motion. Her paleness
became a pallor.

"You ask me that--you would--"

"Yes, I would. I did fight it. I didn't really know you until to-night.
You've been unreadable. Now I feel you are your real self. Not the
daredevil