Keith paused and reflected a moment, then held out his hand.

“Doctor, if I win her will you make our house your home?”

The old man’s face softened, and he held out his hand again.

“You will have to come and see me sometimes.”

Five minutes later Keith turned up the walk that led to the side verandah of the building that Dr. Balsam had put up for his sanatorium on the site of Gates’s hotel.  The moon was slowly sinking toward the western mountain-tops, flooding with soft light the valley below, and touching to silver the fleecy clouds that, shepherded by the gentle wind, wreathed the highest peaks beyond.  How well Keith remembered it all:  the old house with its long verandah; the moonlight flooding it; the white figure reclining there; and the boy that talked of his ideal of loveliness and love.  She was there now; it seemed to him that she had been there always, and the rest was merely a dream.  He walked up on the turf, but strode rapidly.  He could not wait.  As he mounted the steps, he took off his hat.

“Good evening.”  He spoke as if she must expect him.

She had not heard him before.  She was reclining among pillows, and her face was turned toward the western sky.  Her black dress gave him a pang.  He had never thought of her in black, except as a little girl.  And such she almost seemed to him now.

She turned toward him and gave a gasp.

“Mr. Keith!”

“Lois—­I have come—­” he began, and stopped.

She held out her hand and tried to sit up.  Keith took her hand softly, as if it were a rose, and closing his firmly over it, fell on one knee beside her chair.

“Don’t try to sit up,” he said gently.  “I went to Brookford as soon as I heard of it—­” he began, and then placed his other hand on hers, covering it with his firm grasp.

“I thought you would,” she said simply.

Keith lifted her hand and held it against his cheek.  He was silent a moment.  What should he say to her?  Not only all other women, but all the rest of the world, had disappeared.

“I have come, and I shall not go away again until you go with me.”

For answer she hid her face and began to cry softly.  Keith knelt with her hand to his lips, murmuring his love.

“I am so glad you have come.  I don’t know what to do,” she said presently.

“You do not have to know.  I know.  It is decided.  I love you—­I have always loved you.  And no one shall ever come between us.  You are mine—­mine only.”  He went on pouring out his soul to her.

[Illustration:  “Lois—­I have come”—­he began]

“My old Doctor—?” she began presently, and looked up at him with eyes “like stars half-quenched in mists of silver dew.”

“He agrees.  We will make him live with us.”

“Your father-?”

“Him, too.  You shall be their daughter.”

She gave him her hands.