beautiful girl,
Fate is liable to be thumping vigorously on the door of your heart. So
Morty walking home under a drooping August moon with Laura Nesbit that
night determined to bring matters to a decision. As they came up the
walk to the Nesbit home, the girl was humming the tune that beat upon
his heart, and almost unconsciously they fell to waltzing. At the
veranda steps they paused, and his arm was around her. She tried to move
away from him, and cuffed him as she cried: "Now Morty--you know--you
know very well what I've always--"

"Laura--Laura--" he cried, as he held her hand to his face and tried to
focus her soul with his brown eyes, "Laura," he faltered, then words
deserted him: the fine speech he had planned melted into, "O, my
dear--my dear!" But he kept her hand. The pain and passion in his voice
cut into the girl's heart. She was not frightened. She did not care to
run. She did not even take his persisting arm from about her. She let
him kiss her hand reverently, then she sat with him on the veranda step
and as they sat she drew his arm from her waist until it was hooked in
her arm, and her hand held his.

"Oh, I'm in earnest to-night, Laura," said Morty, gripping her hand.
"I'm staking my whole life to-night, Laura. I'm deadly--oh, quite deadly
serious, Laura, and oh--"

"And I'm serious too, Morty," said the girl--"just as serious as you!"
She slipped her hand away from his and put her hand upon his shoulder
gently, almost tenderly. But the youth felt a certain calmness in her
touch that disheartened him.

In a storm of despair he spoke: "Laura--Laura, can't you see--how can
you let me go on loving you as I do until I am mad! Can't you see that
my soul is yours and always has been! You can call it into heights it
will never know without you! You--you--O, sometimes I feel that I could
pray to you as to God!" He turned to her a face glowing with a white and
holy passion, and dropped her hand from his shoulder and did not touch
her as he spoke. Their eyes met steadfastly in a silence. Then the girl
bowed her head and sobbed. For she knew, even in her teens, she knew
with the intuitions that are old as human love upon the planet that she
was in the naked presence of an adoring soul. When she could speak she
picked up the man's soft white hand, and kissed it. She could not have
voiced her eternal denial more certainly. And Morty Sands lifted an
agonized face to the stars and his jaws trembled. He had ligh