THEY talked about many things that morning as they rode happily toward Hawk Valley. Holt felt no anxiety, now, about reaching there by night, for he knew exactly where he was and how to get there. He had bargained with one of the men for fire-arms, and he could now shoot enough to keep them from hunger even if they were delayed. He had matches in his pocket and an old cow-boy hat on his head, and he felt rested and fit for the journey. For the first half of the way, at least, he could give himself up to the bliss of a companionship such as he had never known in the whole of his young life. Reverence, awe, adoration were in his glance as he looked at the girl, and a great, wistful sadness grew as the day lingered toward evening.

They rode first straight down to the telegraph station which was about fifteen miles from the settler's cabin, and sent reassuring telegrams from the forlorn little office set out alone in the middle of the prairie; one to Jean's father and mother back in the eastern home, and one to her sister, Eleanor Harrington, in Hawk Valley.

"Don't worry about accident. Am safe and well and shall reach Hawk Valley to-night. -- Jean" said the first message. The second Holt worded for himself, for he had left the girl outside the station on her horse. She had asked him to be sure and tell her sister that he was with her so she would not worry, but the message he sent was :

"Safe and well, and on my way to you with a friend who will look out for me. Expect to reach Hawk Valley to-night. -- Jean."

Enquiry concerning the accident brought little information. The wreck had been on the "other road" and the agent "hadn't heard much." He "didn't know whether many lives were lost or not," and he "guessed it was the engineer's fault, any how, -- it usually was."

They rode on their way in happy converse. Jean was led to tell of her home life. Not that Holt questioned her, but she seemed to love to talk of home, and picture her family, her friends, the church where her father preached, the companions of her girlhood, the serious school life and church work to which she had been devoting herself; and, above all, he saw and wondered over the sweet confidence that existed between this girl and her parents. A wistful look came into his eyes as he thought what might have been his life if someone had cared for him and trusted in him that way; or if he had had a sister like this girl.

Suddenly, in the middle of the afternoon the girl looked up and asked: "Will your mother worry? Did you send her a telegram, too?"

He looked at her half startled.

"My mother?" he said in a strange, cold voice. "My mother never worries about me. She isn't that kind. I doubt if she even knows where I am these days. I've been west for a long time. Father died and mother married again since I left home. I don't suppose she would even hear of the accident. There's no one to care where I am" There was a bitterness in the young voice and a hardness on the handsome features that cast a pall over the beauty of the afternoon for Jean.

"Oh," she said, looking at him earnestly. "Oh, don't say that! I'm sure some one cares."

There were tears in her eyes. He looked so noble and good to her, and her heart went out to him utterly in his loneliness. In that moment she knew that she cared with all her heart; that she would always care. It was strange and wonderful, but she felt she would always care!

He looked at her with wonder again and a yearning that he could not hide.

"I believe you would care!" he exclaimed.

She smiled through a sudden mist of tears. "Yes, I should care, I couldn't help it," she said, "You have done so much for me you know, and I -- know you so well --" she hesitated, "I don't see how anybody who belonged to you could help caring." Her cheeks were rosy with the effort to say what she meant without seeming unmaidenly.

His brow darkened.

"Belonged!" he said bitterly. "Belonged! Yes, that's it. I don't belong! I don't belong anywhere!" His voice was so different and so harsh that it almost frightened her. She watched him, half afraid as he brought his horse to a sudden stop and looked about him. Then he changed the subject abruptly:

"This is a good place to camp for supper and rest," he said, as if he had quite forgotten what they had been saying.

He swung down from the saddle, hobbled his horse, and came around to her side to help her alight; but stood a moment looking earnestly, tenderly into her eyes, and she looked back at him trustingly, wonderingly with the worshipful homage a woman's eyes can hold for the man who has won her tenderest thoughts. She did not know she was looking that way, bless you, no! She would have been filled with confusion if she had known it. It was unconscious and the man knew so and treasured her look the more for that.

"I believe you do care, now," he said in a voice filled with a sort of holy awe that made the girl's heart leap up and the color flame into her cheeks. Then before she could answer or think to be embarrassed, he lifted her reverently from the saddle and put her on the ground.

He hobbled her horse, unstrapped the pack of provisions and went off to gather up firewood, but when he returned she was sitting where he put her under the tree, her face buried in her hands, her slender form motionless.

He stood for a moment and watched her, then came over and knelt down beside her, and taking her hands gently from her face, looked into the dewy depths of her sweet eyes and spoke:

"Don't!" he pleaded gently. "Let's have supper now, and then we'll talk it all out. Will you come and help me make a fire?"

There was something in his strong, tender glance that helped her to rise to his call. A lovely smile grew in her eyes. She let him help her to her feet, and casting aside the reserved shyness that had fallen over her like a misty veil, she ran here and there, gathering sticks and helping to make the fire blaze; talking merrily about the supper they were preparing just as she had done all day; but her heart was in a tumult of wonder.

Holt shot a couple of rabbits and put them to roast before the fire. Jean set herself to toast the soggy corn bread and make it more palatable. Their merry laughter rang out again and again as they prepared their simple meal. They were like two children playing house. No one looking on would nave seen any difference in their demeanor from what it had been all day. It was only when Holt was out in the open, shooting rabbits, that he allowed the sadness and gloom to settle down upon his young face. It was only when he was away gathering more wood that Jean, left to watch the sputtering rabbits, let the corn bread burn, while her face grew thoughtful, and her eyes sweet with a tender light.

It was when the supper was eaten and the fire flickering low in the dying light of sunset that Holt came and sat down beside the girl, and again a great silence fell between them.

Holt had planned their home-coming to be in the dark. For the girl's sake he would not have witnesses to their arrival. This thoughtfulness sprang from finer feelings than the people of Hawk Valley dreamed that he possessed. There remained but a little over an hour's ride now to reach Hawk Valley, and Holt did not mean they should get there before nine o'clock at the earliest.

He sat gravely quiet, his strong hands folded across his raised knees, his back against a tree, looking bravely, wistfully, off into the distance. He seemed a great deal older, now, with that grave, sad expression. Jean stole a glance at him now and then, as she plucked at the vegetation about her, and wondered why this appalling silence, which she seemed powerless to break, had so suddenly fallen upon them.

Then the man's voice broke the stillness in a low tense tone. "There's something I must tell you."

The very air seemed waiting to hear what he would say. The girl scarcely breathed.

"It wouldn't have been the square thing for me to tell you that I loved you if I had been the only one that cared; but we've been through all this together, and it's as if we had known each other for years -- and -- you care too! I can see it in your eyes. I'm not worthy of it -- but you care -- and it's up to me to help you stop it. It would be an easier job, perhaps, if I were used to being trusted, but it's an honest fact that you're the first respectable person that has really trusted me since I can remember, and it comes hard --"

His voice broke as if an alien sob had wandered into his bronzed throat. A sob swelled in the girl's throat, too, and her little briar-scratched hand stole out and just touched his arm reassuringly with a feather glance of pressure, and withdrew as if to say: "I will bear my part of this trouble, whatever it is -- please don't suffer more than your own part."

He turned at that and the cloud on his face cleared and brightened into a smile that seemed to enfold her in his glance of tenderness, yet he lifted not a finger to touch her.

"I love you! How I love you! " he said, in a low, lingering tone, as if the speaking of the words were exquisite joy that he knew was fleeting and must be treasured.

"I never knew there was a girl like you. I loved you at once as soon as I saw you in the train -- but I knew, of course, you were not for me. I'm not fit for you -- I'm not in your class at all -- and I wouldn't have dreamed of anything but worshipping you, even after these days together -- only you care! You trust me! That broke me all up! I'd give anything in this world if I could keep that and take it to the end and die with it -- to remember that look in your eyes when you said you trusted me -- and thought I was good -- and all. If you weren't going right where they know all about me and will tell you, I'd never have opened my lips, I'd have stolen this one little bit of trust and kept it for my own; for down in my heart I know it isn't wrong, I know you may trust me. I'd give my life to keep that trust --"

He was looking straight into her clear eyes as he talked and his own eyes were clear and good, showing his strong, true spirit at its best. The appeal in his voice suddenly went to the girl's heart. With a growing uneasiness she had listened to his words, and she felt that she could bear no more. The tears rushed to her eyes and she put up her hands to cover her face.

"Please. Tell me quick!" she breathed softly.

Puzzled, thrilled with the wonder of her tears, and longing inexpressibly to comfort her, he put out his hand awkwardly and laid it on her bowed head bending over her as he might have done to a, child in trouble.

"There's nothing for you to feel bad about," he said in a voice of wonderful tenderness. "I'm bearing this circumstance. I just wanted to be the one to tell you myself that I'm not what you think me. I'm not bad, really, the way I might be, but I've not been good, and I'm not a gentleman, not the kind you're used to. Nobody thinks I'm worth anything at all. Your people hate me, and would think it a good thing if somebody would kill me, I know. You see how it is that I can't be like other men who love you. I cannot ask you to marry me; for after you've heard what your family will say about me you won't look at me yourself -- and I don't blame you. It's all my own fault, I suppose. I can see it now, though I never thought so till I looked in your eyes on the train. If I had known a girl like you was coming my way I'd have made things different -- I'd have been ready -- but I didn't know. Nobody ever told me! And now it's too late. I'm not worthy of you."

He took his hand from her head and dropped back against the tree again, a bitter expression on his face,

"Oh, don't," she pleaded softly, quick to see his changing mood. "Please don't look like that. Won't you tell me what you have done that makes them all feel so about you?"

There was silence for a moment between them while the twilight grew luminous with the coming of a pale, young moon battling with the dying ruby of the sun. So, in the holy of the evening he came to his confession, face to face with his sins before the pure eyes of the girl he loved.