THE stars were large and vivid above them, like tapers of tall angels bent to light a soul's confession up to God.

The beautiful silence that brooded over the plain was broken now and again by distant calls of some wild creature, but that only emphasized the stillness and the privacy of the night.

The two whose souls were thus come so strangely and unexpectedly into a common crisis of their lives sat awed and stricken before the appalling irrevocableness of deeds that are past.

Jasper Holt broke the silence at last:

"I was never as bad as they thought I was," he said in a broken voice, though there was no hint in it of attempting to discount his blame. "They laid a lot of things at my door that I never thought of doing -- some things I would have scorned to do." His voice was haughty now with pride. "I suppose it was my fault they thought I did them. I let them think so -- I grew to glory in their thinking so, and sometimes helped it on just for the pleasure of feeling that they, through their injustice, were more in the wrong than I.

I suppose I had no right to do that. At least I see now that for -- your sake -- I should have kept my record clear." He lifted his gray eyes in the starlight to her face for one swift look and then went on:

"It was none of their business what I did though, and my theory always has been to do as I pleased so long as I lived up to my creed. For I had a creed, a kind of religion, if you want to call it that. Put into a single word, perhaps nine-tenths of my creed is Independence. What people thought of me didn't come into my scheme of life. I thought it a slavery to bow to public opinion, and gloried in my freedom. It seemed a false principle without cause or reason. You see I never reckoned on your coming. I thought I was living my life just for myself. I can see now that underneath all the falseness of the world's conventionalities there runs some good reason, and there may be circumstances where some of the things they insist upon are right -- even necessary. This is one. I never considered anything like this. I couldn't see any reason why I should ever need to care what people thought of me, or to go out of my way to make them think well of me. I always relied on something else to get me what I wanted, and so far it has not failed. They will tell you that. They will let you know that I have not been powerless because some men hated me -- for though they have hated me they have also feared me --

The girl turned her eyes, tear-filled, and full of amazement, to look at him, studying the fine outline of features against the starlit background of the sky. She could see the power in his face; power with gentleness was what she had seen when she first looked at him; but Hate! Fear! How could men so misjudge him? What was there about him to fear?

He read her thought.

"You don't see how that could be," he said sadly. "l don't look that way to you now. But wait till you hear them talk. You'll get another view-point. You won't see me this way at all any more. You'll see me with their eyes --"

"Don't!" she said with a sob in her voice, putting up her hands as if to defend herself from his words.

"I shall not blame you," he said bending tenderly, eagerly toward her. "It will not be your fault. It will be almost inevitable. You belong with them and not with me, and you cannot help seeing me that way when you get with them. It is a part of my miserable folly. It is my punishment. I have no right to make you think I am better than they believe. It will be easier for you to forget me if you believe what they do --"

"I will never believe what they do! " said the girl vehemently, "I will never listen to their opinion. You may have sinned; you may have done a lot of things that you ought not to have done -- I am not wise to judge those things -- but you are not bad! I know you are not! And I know I can trust you! I shall always trust you no matter what anybody says, no matter how things look! I know you are good and true! I know you!"

She put out her hands piteously toward him and her delicate face was lifted with determination and intensity. There was something glorious in the sparkle of her eyes. He took her hands reverently. "You dear! " he breathed tenderly. "You wonderful woman!"

She caught her breath and her hands trembled in his, but she sat up proudly as if she were defying the world in his defence.

"Now, tell me the rest," she said. " Tell it all! And then I shall believe just what you tell me, nothing more! If they tell me other things I shall know they are false. I shall not be afraid when you tell me what you have done because you are here and I can look into your eyes and know you are sorry; so tell me the worst. But you needn't ever think I shall listen to them."

So, with her soft small hands in his, and her eyes bright as the stars above them, looking straight into his, he looked back as straightforwardly and told her. All the foolishness, the stubbornness, and independence. All the fight against convention and law. His gambling and wild, rough living. His companioning with men who were outlaws and sinners. His revolutionary methods of dealing with those who did not do as he thought they ought, or who tried to interfere with him. His summary punishment of those who stirred his soul to wrath. He told it in low tones and grave, searching out each confession of his heart as though he would make a clean sweep of it, and lifting his eyes bravely each time to meet the pain he could not help seeing in hers. It was his real judgment, his first sense of shame and sorrow and repentance.

And then when it was told he bowed his head in silence for a moment, still holding her hands, as though there yet remained something more to say. At last he spoke.

"There's one thing," he said, and he lifted his head with a sigh. "Yes -- two things, I might say -- that I suppose you'll be glad to hear. I haven't been a drinking man! I doubt if many of your friends will believe that, for I'm often in the saloons, and with men who drink. I haven't noised it abroad that I don't drink, and only those who have been with me a good deal and know my ways, understand it. I simply don't drink because I don't want to. I saw what it did to men when I first came out here. I knew I needed my brains for what I wanted to do, and I didn't like the idea of surrendering them for a few hours' carouse and putting myself even temporarily out of my own control, so I just determined I wouldn't drink and I didn't. But your brother and sister won't believe that. My reputation is understood to be of the worst, and drinking is a matter of course when one is hard and wild as they think I am. There's another thing, too. I've kept away from women. Some of them hurt me too much when I was a kid, and when I grew a little older, and so I decided against them all. That's kept me clean. I can look you in the eyes and not be ashamed. I didn't do it because I had any idea there would ever be one like you in my world. I did it just because the kind of thing that some men liked, turned me sick to think of. This is probably another thing your people wouldn't believe. They've heard otherwise of me. They've shouldered every crime in the calendar on me. And perhaps they've had some reason from their standpoint. I haven't always tried to make things look right. I didn't care. It wasn't their business. There was a girl came to the Valley once with a traveling show who was all in. She was down on her luck and just about ready to give up and take her own life. I helped her out a bit, paid for her at the hotel a few days till she got rested, and sent her on her way to her father in Missouri; but you ought to have heard the rumpus the town raised! That added to my savory reputation, you see. Well, I'm no saint, but I've kept clean! So -- there you have the worst of me -- and the best -- but it's bad enough. Your father wouldn't stand for me a minute, and I guess he's right. I don't blame him. I blame myself. As for your sister! Why, if Harrington knew I was out here alone with you he'd bring a posse of men and shoot me on the spot for daring to bring you home. He would. He feels just that way about me."

"I shall change all that," said Jean with a thrill in her voice, "I shall tell them how mistaken they have been in you. I shall tell them that was only a kind of rough outside that you wore -- a mask that hid your inner feelings. I shall make them understand that they have not known the real man you are at all."

"You cannot do that, little girl," said the man, gently leaning toward her. "It would be best for you not to try. I tell you you do not know in the least what the feeling is against me --"

"But you will help to show them, too," said Jean, wide-eyed with sorrow. "You will not go on doing those things -- those -- well -- the things that made them feel you were not right --" She paused in a confusion of words, not liking to voice a thought against him. "You will not do so any more?" She pleaded wistfully like a child. "You will make them see -- for my sake if not for your own you will let them see how wonderful you are! How fine you have been to me! You will not let them go on thinking. You will change it all?"

Her voice choked off in a sob and for a moment she dropped her tear-wet face down upon his hands that held hers. The strong man thrilled and trembled with her touch and it was then he felt the most crucial moment of his punishment.

He sat white and silent for a moment, longing to gather her into his arms and comfort her, to crush her to him; but he would not. The nobleness in him held her sacred because he knew he was unworthy. Then he spoke in a low, grave tone, and his voice had a hollow, hopeless sound.

"I'll change, of course," he said. "I couldn't do otherwise. Did you think I could go on that way after having known you? I never could do any of the things again that I know you wouldn't like. I couldn't, now that you've trusted me. I wouldn't want to. You have made everything seem different. If it'll please you any I'll promise anything you like. But of course I know that doesn't matter so far as our ever having each other is concerned. Nothing I can do can make people forget what they think I am. They would never feel differently. They would feel it a disgrace for you to speak to me. They'd always think you'd gone to perdition if you had anything to do with me. I'm not fit for you. I know it and there's an end of it, but I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make myself what I ought to have been, if that will comfort you any."

The girl's hands clung now with almost a painful clasp, and tears were dropping down her face.

"Don't! Don't!" he pleaded earnestly. "Don't take it so. I'm not worth it, really I'm not. You'll find it out when you get to your sister's and hear her talk, and -- forget -- about this ," -- his voice broke and he lifted his face, white with sudden realization of what that would mean to him. "Oh, God! What a fool I have been!" The words were wrung from the depths of his soul.

Then the girl spoke, her voice calm with a suddenly acquired strength.

"Listen!" she said, and he wondered at her quietness. "I shall never forget. Never! Nothing that anybody can say will ever make me think as they do of you. I know you -- and you have saved my life." He stirred impatiently, and almost roughly tried to draw his hands away.

"Don't talk of gratitude," he said huskily.

"No," she said firmly, taking his hands again and laying her own within them as before. Then he accepted them as if they were a sacred trust, folding his reverently about them.

"I am not talking of gratitude," she said, and her voice was tense with feeling. "You saved my life and I know what you are, and what you have done for me. Nothing can ever change that, not even what you have done in the past; and nobody can ever make me feel differently about you. I know you, I trust you -- I -- love -- you!" Her voice was low and sweet as she said this and she did not lift her eyes. The young man felt her fingers tremble within his own strong grasp, and he looked down wonderingly at the slender wrists and thrilled with holy awe at her words. It humbled him, shamed him, with a pain that was a solemn joy, to hear her. And he had nothing to say. What gracious influence had been at work in his behalf that miracle so great should have been wrought in a pure girl's heart for him; an outlaw -- a careless, selfish, wild man who had hitherto lived as he pleased, for himself, caring for nobody, nobody caring for him. He had held his head high and gone his independent way. He had held the creed that the whole world was against him, and his chief aim in life should be to circumvent and annoy that world. Nothing good and holy had ever come into his life before. Knowledge he had, and a certain amount of worldly wisdom learned in a hard school, and well learned; but love, care, tenderness, trust, had never been given to him even in his babyhood. No wonder he was confounded at the sudden treasure thrust upon him.

"I am only a very young girl," Jean's voice went on. "I know you are right that I must not do anything to distress my father and mother. They love me very much and I love them. You and I can go our separate ways if we must, but nobody can hinder me from trusting you. It is right I should. I owe it to you for what you have done for me -- and my love I could not help giving you. I know you are going to be right and true forever; I know you will not do those things any more that have made people think you were not good -- I know you will always be just what I think you are now, won't you?"

His voice was low and solemn, and his eyes held depths of sincerity as he lifted them to her pleading ones and answered:

"I promise you."

"And I promise you that I will trust you always," she said, and thus their covenant was made.

For a long moment they sat with clasping hands, unaware of the beauty of the evening, aware only of their own two startled, suffering spirits, that had found and lost each other and learned the consequences of sin. They did not seem to need words, for each knew what was in the other's heart.

He raised her at last to her feet and, bending low, whispered:

"I thank you."

He stood a moment hesitating, then gave her hands one quick pressure again and turned away.

"I was going to ask something," he said, " but I guess that isn't square."

And she stood pondering what it might have been. Silently he helped her on the pony and without words they rode away into the moonlight.

There were tears in the girl's eyes when she lifted them at last and asked:

"And won't I see you at all ? Won't you ever come to the house?"

There was a sound almost of tears in the man's voice as he answered:

"I am afraid not."

After that they talked softly in tones that people use when they are about to go apart on a long journey and may not ever meet again. Monosyllables, half-finished sentences, of which each knew the beginning or the ending without the words. Large understanding, quick pain, wistfulness, longing, a question now and then -- this was their conversation.

They came at last to the brow of a hill where below them at a gentle slope Hawk Valley lay, its lights twinkling among the velvety shadows of the night. In the clear moonlight it seemed so near, so sudden, as it lay just below them that Jean caught her breath in a cry that was almost a sob. She knew without being told that the parting of their ways had come. By common consent they checked their horses and made them stand side by side. Holt put out his hand and laid it on hers.

"Don't!" he said huskily. "I won't disappoint you. No matter what anybody tells you, always remember that. I won't disappoint you! You needn't think I've forgotten or changed. I don't forget the only good thing that ever came into my life. You can trust me!"

"I know," she replied softly. "I know I can trust you. And I've been thinking. There's no reason why you couldn't come to see me. I don't care what anybody thinks. You saved my life! I'm not ashamed of you. I have the right to ask you to call and to receive you. My father would approve of that, I am sure."

"You're wonderful! " he exclaimed intensely.

"You're not like any other girl I ever saw. But, it wouldn't do. Your father might stand for it, but your brother-in-law never would. He hates me like poison, not so much because of my reputation as because I've stood in the way of some of his plans. He would kick me out like a dog if I darkened his doors. You'll understand when you hear them talk. It would be just as well if you didn't say anything about me. It won't be necessary for them to know who brought you home; just say a man who was on the train --"

Jean straightened up in her saddle and grasped his hand.

"Indeed I shall tell them who brought me out of death, and just what I think of him. They shall know all that you have done for me. Do you think I would keep still about it? I couldn't. It would be disloyalty. It would be cowardly! "

He watched her kindling face and flashing eyes in the moonlight and hungrily stored the picture away in his memory.

"Darling!" he breathed reverently, as if the words were drawn from his lips in spite of all resolution. Then, raising his voice a trifle, and lifting his head to the night sky:

"I never knew a girl could be like this! What a fool I have been!" The words ended almost in a groan, and for answer the girl drew nearer to him and laid her other hand gently upon his.

Lights flashed below them in the village and voices rose; a coarse laugh rang out and a child's cry; some people talked in an open doorway in another place and called good-night. Then a door slammed and other lights twinkled: just the commonplace noises of life jarring in to break a moment of tremendous import in the lives of these two. The time had come to go down to their valley and they knew it. With one lingering hand-clasp they started on down to the village.

Holt selected the shadowed ways and quieter approach to the Harrington home, and the two rode silently until they came to the house.