how mean and
low I had fallen...."

"No----"

"Yes. The tyranny was all imaginary--I saw that. I could think of no act
on your part that wasn't kind, or for my good. I came back to find you
ill, sick unto death. It seemed it was some punishment on my head.... Oh,
everything changed in those few days. If you had died I think I should
have died too, though I didn't love you--then."

He gave vent to a low hiss of incomparable joy.

"And you do now?" he asked.

Her rapturous eyes were sufficient answer.

"It beats me," he muttered. "It clean gets me wondering that you can love
a chap like me. Once I thought you could, but then I didn't know you as
you are--say, you're sure about this, ain't you?"

She gave him a hug.

"I agree with Natalie, no woman could help loving you--eventually."

"Oh, she said that, did she?"

"Yes."

"Wal, I guess love comes easy to a woman like that."

"And you don't like the love that comes easy?"

He made a grimace.

"Nothin' good ever comes easy. All the best things have to be fought for,
won by long suffering and ordeal."

They sat in silence for a time, the heart of each overburdened with
intense happiness. A light breeze swept up the river, soughing through the
thick woods on the nearer bank.

"It was on such a night as this, back in England, that I first told you I
loved you," he said.

"You can speak of that now without regret?"

"Sure. It was the finest thing I ever did. I thought I was happy then, but
now----"

The unfinished sentence conveyed all he meant to convey. She turned her
head until her full red lips came near his.

"You kissed me then, Jim. Won't you kiss me now?"

She felt his great heart throbbing against her bosom as he made haste to
fulfill the invitation. If he had dallied in his love-making he lingered
in his kissing. The whole world seemed to slide into oblivion in that
first passionate love-kiss. She clung to him, wholly and eternally his,
conscious of nothing but the close presence of the rough, strong man into
whose adoring arms a kindly providence had thrown her.

"By God, I'll never let you go again!" he hissed.

"By God, I don't want to," she retorted, with a merry laugh.

"Over there's England," he cried, pointing away to the east.

"And over here's America--Colorado."

"Eh?"

"Are we not to have a honeymoon--we who were married but to-day?"

His eyes opened wide.

"You don't mean----?"

"I do. I want to spend it in your co