They talked then long and comfortably in the dusk—­about how the Leslies had written the letter, how much trouble she had taken to conceal her real identity, and all the rest.

“I sent Bill Lawton up to warn your camp the first day I met you,” said she.

“Why, I remember!” he cried.  “He was there when I got back.”

And they talked on of their many experiences, in the fashion of lovers, and how they had come to care for each other, and when.

“I made up my mind it was so foolish a joke,” she confessed, “that I determined to tell you all about it.  You remember I had something to tell you at the Pioneer’s Picnic?  That was it.  But then you remember the girl in the train, and how, when she looked at us, you turned away?”

“I remember that well enough,” replied Bennington.  “But what has that to do with it?”

“It was a perfectly natural thing to do, dearest.  I see that plainly enough now.  But it hurt me a little that you should be ashamed of me as a Western girl, and I made up my mind to test you.”

“Why, I wasn’t thinking of that at all,” cried Bennington.  “I was just ashamed of my clothes.  I never thought of you!”

She reached out and patted his hand.  “I’m glad to hear that, Ben dear, after all.  It did hurt.  And I was so foolish.  I thought if you were ashamed of me, you would never stand the thought of the Lawtons.  So I did not tell you the truth then, but resolved to test you in that way.”

“Foolish little girl!” said he tenderly.  “But it came out all right, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” she sighed, with a happy gesture of the hands.  They fell silent.

“I want you to tell me something, dear,” said Bennington after a while.  “You needn’t unless you want to, but I’ve thought about it a great deal.”

“I will tell you, Ben, anything in the world.  We ought to be frank with each other now, don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know as I ought to say anything about it, after all,” he hesitated, evidently embarrassed.  “But, Mary, you know you have hinted a little at it yourself.  You remember you said something once about losing faith, and being made hard, and——­”

She took both his hands in hers and drew them closely to her breast.  Although he could not see her eyes against the dusk, he knew that she was looking at him steadily.

“Listen quietly, Ben dear, and I will tell you.  Before I came out here I thought I loved a man, and he—­well, he did not treat me well.  I had trusted him and every one else implicitly until the very moment when——­I felt it very much, and I came West with Jim to get away from the old scenes.  Now I know that it was only fascination, but it was very real then.  You do not like that, Ben, do you?  The memory is not pleasant to me, and yet,” she said, with a wistful little break of the voice, “if it hadn’t been for that I would not have been the woman I am, and I could not love you, dearest, as I do.  It is never in the same way twice, but each time something better and higher is added to it.  Oh, my darling, I do love you, I do love you so much, and you must be always my generous, poetic boy, as you are now.”