Dorn was closeted with her father for over an hour.  When he came out he was white, but apparently composed.  Lenore had never seen his eyes so piercing as when they rested upon her.

“Whew!” he exclaimed, and wiped his face.  “Your father has my poor old dad—­what does Kathleen say?—­skinned to a frazzle!”

“What did he say?” asked Lenore, anxiously.

“A lot—­and just as if I didn’t know it all better than he knows,” replied Dorn, sadly.  “The importance of wheat; his three ranches and nobody to run them; his growing years; my future and a great opportunity as one of the big wheat men of the Northwest; the present need of the government; his only son gone to war, which was enough for his family....  And then he spoke of you—­heiress to ’Many Waters’—­what a splendid, noble girl you were—­like your mother!  What a shame to ruin your happiness—­your future!...  He said you’d make the sweetest of wives—­the truest of mothers!...  Oh, my God!”

Lenore turned away her face, shocked to her heart by his tragic passion.  Dorn was silent for what seemed a long time.

“And—­then he cussed me—­hard—­as no doubt I deserved,” added Dorn.

“But—­what did you say?” she whispered.

“I said a lot, too,” replied Dorn, remorsefully.

“Did—­did you—?” began Lenore, and broke off, unable to finish.

“I arrived—­to where I am now—­pretty dizzy,” he responded, with a smile that was both radiant and sorrowful.  He took her hands and held them close.  “Lenore!... if I come home from the war—­still with my arms and legs—­whole—­will you marry me?”

“Only come home alive, and no matter what you lose, yes!—­yes!” she whispered, brokenly.

“But it’s a conditional proposal, Lenore,” he insisted.  “You must never marry half a man.”

“I will marry you!” she cried, passionately.

It seemed to her that she loved him all the more, every moment, even though he made it so hard for her.  Then through blurred, dim eyes she saw him take something from his pocket and felt him put a ring on her finger.

“It fits!  Isn’t that lucky,” he said, softly.  “My mother’s ring, Lenore....”

He kissed her hand.

Kathleen was standing near them, open-eyed and open-mouthed, in an ecstasy of realization.

“Kathleen, your sister has promised to marry me—­when I come from the war,” said Dorn to the child.

She squealed with delight, and, manifestly surrendering to a long-considered temptation, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him close.

“It’s perfectly grand!” she cried.  “But what a chump you are for going at all—­when you could marry Lenorry!”

That was Kathleen’s point of view, and it must have coincided somewhat with Mr. Anderson’s.

“Kathleen, you wouldn’t have me be a slacker?” asked Dorn, gently.

“No.  But we let Jim go,” was her argument.