“Peter”—­and now her eyes seemed to come back to earth again, to lose something of the far-away look of the sleep-walker—­“Peter, I’m cruel to speak to you of these things now.  When your heart is full of your own happiness, I come to you like a dark shadow with this tragedy.  But I am glad for the good that has come to you, Peter.  Perhaps Miss Colebrooke told you of the day I met her in the wood, the day of the wolf-hunt.  She was so beautiful, I understood—­”

“Judith, I hardly know how to say what I am going to, I feel that I have been such a bad friend to you, but you must hear me patiently.  Together, if you are willing, after knowing all of me that you do, we must look after your brother’s children.  That night in the little house in the valley, when the little chap came to me, don’t you remember, there was something fine and fearless in the way he did it.  ’You may belong to the cattle side of the argument,’ he seemed to say, ‘but I trust you.’  Now, Judith dear, that boy’s faith in me is not going to be shaken.  We must look after them together.  It is a very little thing you have asked of me, my dearest, but a very big one that I am asking of you.  Do you understand, my Judith, it is you that I want?  Don’t think of me as I have been, Judith, but as you are going to make me.  I want you to give me the right now, this evening, to share all this trouble with you.  Do we understand each other, Judith?  Is it to be?  And will you come back with me now, into the room where they are dancing, and let me present you to them, to the Wetmores, as my Judith, my betrothed?”

“But, Peter, I don’t understand.  I—­I thought you and Miss Colebrooke were—­”

“That’s all over, Judith.  I did love her once.  Oh, you dear, brave woman, I’m not a hero from any point of view, and you know it.  It’s but a sorry lover that’s making his prayer to you, my dearest; but you won’t judge, I know, beloved, you will love me instead?”

Judith turned towards the valley.  Her whole being throbbed with a passionate response to the man who stood so humbly before her, but there were duties that came first.  Her mind was full of Alida and her children, and her eyes still sought Peter’s imploringly.

“You will be a good friend to them, Peter—­to Jim’s people?  I cannot talk to you of anything else to-night.  Your heart is big, Peter, but you cannot feel, perhaps—­”

“Listen, Judith.  Whatever friendship and protection I can give your family you may count upon from now till the end of time.  I will be theirs as I am yours.  I feel your grief, but I want to soothe it, too.  And if you love me, and I feel, Judith, that you do, you must let them all see to-night, these people who know us both, that we stand together before all the world for better or worse.  Think, Judith, and you will see that you owe it to yourself, to me, to all these men, who reverence you as the one woman, the one ideal in their lonely lives.”