ruined by these I.W.W.'s. No man in the West has lost so much!
Father--home--land--my great harvest of wheat!... Why shouldn't I go?"

"There's no reason except--_me_," she replied, rather unsteadily.

He drew himself up, with a deep breath, as if fortifying himself.
"That's a mighty good reason.... But you will be kinder if you withdraw
your objections."

"Can't you conceive of any reason why I--I beg you not to go?"

"I can't," he replied, staring at her. It seemed that every moment he
spent in her presence increased her effect upon him. Lenore felt this,
and that buoyed up her failing courage.

"Kurt, you've made a very distressing--a terrible and horrible blunder,"
she said, with a desperation that must have seemed something else to
him.

"My heavens! What have I done?" he gasped, his face growing paler. How
ready he was to see more catastrophe! It warmed her heart and
strengthened her nerve.

The moment had come. Even if she did lose her power of speech she still
could show him what his blunder was. Nothing in all her life had ever
been a hundredth part as hard as this. Yet, as the words formed, her
whole heart seemed to be behind them, forcing them out. If only he did
not misunderstand!

Then she looked directly at him and tried to speak. Her first attempt
was inarticulate, her second was a whisper, "Didn't you ever--think I--I
might care for you?"

It was as if a shock went over him, leaving him trembling. But he did
not look as amazed as incredulous. "No, I certainly never did," he said.

"Well--that's your blunder--for I--I do. You--you never--never--asked
me."

"You do what--care for me?... What on earth do you mean by that?"

Lenore was fighting many emotions now, the one most poignant being a
wild desire to escape, which battled with an equally maddening one to
hide her face on his breast.

Yet she could see how white he had grown--how different. His hands
worked convulsively and his eyes pierced her very soul.

"What should a girl mean--telling she cared?"

"I don't know. Girls are beyond me," he replied, stubbornly.

"Indeed that's true. I've felt so far beyond you--I had to come to
this."

"Lenore," he burst out, hoarsely, "you talk in riddles! You've been so
strange, yet so fine, so sweet! And now you say you care for me!...
Care?... What does that mean? A word can drive me mad. But I never dared
to hope. I love you--love you--love you--my God! you're all I've left to
love. I--"