“I ain’t sure that’s what he said it was—­I ain’t sure o’ anythin’ only jest you,” she said coyly, burying her face in his neck.

“You may well be sure of me since I’ve loved—­” Johnson’s sentence was cut short, a wave of remorse sweeping over him.  “Turn your head away, Girl, and don’t listen to me,” he went on, gently putting her away from him.  “I’m not worthy of you.  Don’t listen but just say no, no, no, no.”

The Girl, puzzled, was even more so when Johnson began to pace the floor.

“Oh, I know—­I ain’t good enough for you !” she cried with a little tremour in her voice.  “But I’ll try hard, hard . . .  If you see anythin’ better in me, why don’t you bring it out, ’cause I’ve loved you ever since I saw you first, ’cause I knowed that you—­that you were the right man.”

“The right man,” repeated Johnson, dismally, for his conscience was beginning to smite him hard.

“Don’t laugh!”

“I’m not laughing,” as indeed he was not.

“O’ course every girl kind o’ looks ahead,” went on the Girl in explanation.

“Yes, I suppose,” he observed seriously.

“An’ figgers about bein’—­well, Oh, you know—­about bein’ settled.  An’ when the right man comes, why, she knows ’im, you bet!  Jest as we both knowed each other standin’ on the road to Monterey.  I said that day, he’s good, he’s gran’ an’ he can have me.”

“I could have you,” murmured Johnson, meditatively.

The Girl nodded eagerly.

There was a long silence in which Johnson was trying to make up his mind to tear himself away from her,—­the one woman whom he loved in the world,—­for it had been slowly borne in upon him that he was not a fit mate for this pure young girl.  Nor was his unhappiness lessened when he recalled how she had struggled against yielding to him.  At last, difficult though it was, he took his courage in both hands, and said: 

“Girl, I have looked into your heart and my own and now I realise what this means for us both—­for you, Girl—­and knowing that, it seems hard to say good-bye as I should, must and will . . .”

At those clear words spoken by lips which failed so utterly to hide his misery, the Girl’s face turned pale.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Johnson coloured, hesitated, and finally with a swift glance at the clock, he briefly explained: 

“I mean it’s hard to go and leave you here.  The clock reminded me that long before this I should have been on my way.  I shouldn’t have come up here at all.  God bless you, dear,” and here their eyes came together and seemed unable to part,—­“I love you as I never thought I could . . .”

But at Johnson’s queer look she hastened to inquire: 

“But it ain’t for long you’re goin’?”

For long!  Then she had not understood that he meant to go for all time.  How tell her the truth?  While he pondered over the situation there came to him with great suddenness the thought that, perhaps, after all, Life never intended that she should be given to him only to be taken away almost as suddenly; and seized with a desire to hold on to her at any cost, he sprang forward as if to take her in his arms, but before he reached her, he stopped short.