women to have for each other--mysterious, inexplicable, yet real as
Nature. It was as it should be. These thoughts passed through Disston's
mind swiftly. Up there on top of the world, in the moonlight, any
consideration which interfered seemed trifling and indefensible.

"You do love me?" He held her off a little and looked at her. He did not
doubt it--he merely wanted to hear her say it.

She replied simply:

"Yes, Hughie. I have always."

"You're so unexpectedly sweet!" he cried, as he again drew her close to
him. "I've never forgotten that about you." He laughed softly as he
added, "I can't understand why everyone that knows you isn't in love
with you."

"There's no one else who has ever seen this side of me. I am not even
likable to most people."

"It isn't so! But if it were, it doesn't make any difference, for you're
going to marry me--you're going home with me and live a woman's
life--the kind for which you were intended."

The radiance that illuminated her face transformed and glorified it.

She was woman--all woman, at heart--he had not been mistaken, he thought
rapturously as he looked at her.

She stared at him wide-eyed, dazzled by the picture as she breathed
rather than whispered:

"To be with you always--never to be lonely again--to have some one that
cared really when I was sick or tired or heavy-hearted--never to be
savage and bitter and vindictive, but to be glad every morning just to
be living, and to know that each day would be a little nicer than the
last one! It would be that way, wouldn't it, Hughie?"

"How could it be otherwise when just being together is happiness?" he
answered.

"It's like peeking into Paradise," she said, wistfully.

"But you will--you'll promise me? You'll give up this?" There was a
faint note of anxiety in his earnestness as he laid a hand upon her
shoulder and looked at her steadily.

In the long space of time that she took to answer, the radiance died out
of her face like a light that is extinguished slowly:

"I'll tell you in the morning, Hughie. I must think. I make mistakes
when I do what my heart impels me to. My impulses have been wrong
always. I rely upon my head nowadays. I am weak to-night, and I've just
judgment enough left to know it."

"But, Kate!" he expostulated in a kind of terror. "There isn't anything
to argue about--to consider. This isn't business."

She shook her head.

"I must think, Hughie. I'll tell you in the morning. You'd be