“Isn’t that enough?”

“No.”

“Well, I—­I—­”

“Dorian, you’re neither dull nor stupid, except in this.  Why did not someone else do this hunting for a lost girl?  Why should it be you?”

Dorian arose, walked to the window and looked out into the wintry night.  He saw the shine of the everlasting stars in the deep blue.  He sensed the girl’s pleading eyes sinking into his soul as if to search him out.  He glimpsed the shadowy specter lurking in her background.  And yet, as he fixed his eyes on the heavens, his mind cleared, his purpose strengthened.  As he turned, there was a grim smile on his face.  He walked back to the fire-place and seated himself on the arm of Carlia’s chair.

“Carlia,” he said, “I may be stupid—­I am stupid—­I’ve always been stupid with you.  I know it.  I confess it to you.  I have not always acted toward you as one who loves you.  I don’t know why—­lay it to my stupidity.  But, Carlia, I do love you.  I have always loved you.  Yes, ever since we were children playing in the fields and by the creek and the ditches.  I know now what that feeling was.  I loved you then, I love you now.”

The girl arose mechanically from her chair, reached out as if for support to the mantle.  “Why, Oh, why did you not tell me before—­before”—­she cried, then swayed as if to a fall.  Dorian caught her and placed her back in the seat.  He took her cold hands, but in a moment, she pulled them away.

“Dorian, please sit down in this other chair, won’t you?”

Dorian did as she wanted him to do, but he turned the chair to face her.

“I want you to believe me, Carlia.”

“I am trying to believe you.”

“Is it so hard as all that?”

“What I fear is that you are doing all this for me out of the goodness of your heart.  Listen, let me say what I want to say—­I believe I can now....  You’re the best man I know.  I have never met anyone as good as you, no, not even my father—­nobody.  You’re far above me.  You always have been willing to sacrifice yourself for others; and now—­what I fear is that you are just doing this, saying this, out of the goodness of your heart and not because you really—­really love me.”

“Carlia, stop—­don’t.”

“I know you, Dorian.  I’ve heard you and Uncle Zed talk, sometimes when you thought I was not listening.  I know your high ideals of service, how you believe it is necessary for the higher to reach down to help and save the lower.  Oh, I know, Dorian; and it is this that I think of.  You cannot love poor me for my sake, but you are doing this for fear of not doing your duty.  Hush—­Listen!  Not that I don’t honor you for your high ideals—­they are noble, and belong to just such as I believe you are.  Yes, I have always, even as a child, looked up to you as someone big and strong and good—­Yes, I have always worshiped you, loved you!  There, you know it, but what’s the use!”