whispering, 'My soul is escaped!' As for you, take all the time
you want. If you prefer to be alone, I'll take the next train and stay
away as long as I can bear it, but I'll come back. You can be most sure
of that. Straight as your pigeons to their loft, I'll come back to you,
Elnora. Shall I go?"

"Oh, what's the use to be extravagant?" murmured Elnora.

CHAPTER XXII

WHEREIN PHILIP AMMON KNEELS TO ELNORA, AND STRANGERS COME TO THE
LIMBERLOST

The month which followed was a reproduction of the previous June. There
were long moth hunts, days of specimen gathering, wonderful hours with
great books, big dinners all of them helped to prepare, and perfect
nights filled with music. Everything was as it had been, with
the difference that Philip was now an avowed suitor. He missed no
opportunity to advance himself in Elnora's graces. At the end of the
month he was no nearer any sort of understanding with her than he had
been at the beginning. He revelled in the privilege of loving her, but
he got no response. Elnora believed in his love, yet she hesitated to
accept him, because she could not forget Edith Carr.

One afternoon early in July, Philip came across the fields, through the
Comstock woods, and entered the garden. He inquired for Elnora at the
back door and was told that she was reading under the willow. He went
around the west end of the cabin to her. She sat on a rustic bench
they had made and placed beneath a drooping branch. He had not seen her
before in the dress she was wearing. It was clinging mull of pale green,
trimmed with narrow ruffles and touched with knots of black velvet; a
simple dress, but vastly becoming. Every tint of her bright hair, her
luminous eyes, her red lips, and her rose-flushed face, neck, and arms
grew a little more vivid with the delicate green setting.

He stopped short. She was so near, so temptingly sweet, he lost control.
He went to her with a half-smothered cry after that first long look,
dropped on one knee beside her and reached an arm behind her to the
bench back, so that he was very near. He caught her hands.

"Elnora!" he cried tensely, "end it now! Say this strain is over. I
pledge you that you will be happy. You don't know! If you only would say
the word, you would awake to new life and great joy! Won't you promise
me now, Elnora?"

The girl sat staring into the west woods, while strong in her eyes was
her father's look of seeing something invisible to other