b it again right away. Let me
hold this thing a minute."

"You may hold it until the express company takes it away from you."

"Hush, don't make a noise. You'll wake me up. Let me dream."

"She was there," said Lyman, after a brief silence.

"A dreamer listening to a dream," Warren vacantly replied.

"I had quite a talk with her. She is not a doll. She's a woman with a
soul and a mind."

"You are gone," said Warren, wrapping the bank note about his finger.

"No, I'm not gone. I am decidedly here, and I am going to stay here to
protect her."

He related the talk that had passed between the young woman and
himself. He told even of his gaze at the stars and his theatric
declaration to stand as her protector. But he did not tell that she
had caught his hand. In that act there was something sacred to him.

"As I said before, you're all right," declared Warren. "No one but a
great man could have done what you have done tonight. Why, that old
fellow was a jewel, and was not revealed until you brushed the dust
off him. Two hundred copies? He shall have them, together with a
write-up that will make this town's hair stand on end. And, by the
way, don't you think you had better get at it while it's fresh?"

"Don't you fear. It will never fade, my boy. It is in my mind to
stay."

"Look here, don't let that joke turn on you," said Warren. "It would
be serious if you should fall in love with her."

"Yes, but I won't."

"Were you ever caught by a woman?"

"Not very hard; were you?"

"Rather," Warren answered; "I loved a girl several years ago, while I
was running a paper over at Beech Knob. Yes, sir, and I reckon I loved
her as hard as a woman was ever loved. I thought about her every day.
And I believe she cared for me."

"It's of no use to ask you why you didn't marry her. Money, I
suppose."

"That's it, Lyman; money. You see, her old man was rather well fixed,
and one day when he was in the office I borrowed ten dollars of him.
Then I couldn't go to the house, you see, and before I could pay it
back the girl was married. Lost one of the best girls this country
ever produced just because I couldn't raise ten dollars to pay her
father. I guess Brother McElwin wishes now that he had let you have
the hundred. It would have given him a hold on you."

"It would have given him a club," said Lyman. "A man could snatch out
a hundred dollar debt and run me off the bluff. 'Lover's Leap,'" he
added to himself, smiling.