He watched the girl keenly for a moment, then he again turned from her deliberately and walked to the edge of the canon, as if he wanted her to come to her final decision unbiased by his nearness.  But he turned back to her with a curious expression on his face.

“Come and take a good-by look, Rhoda!  Your friends are below.  I hope it will be some time before we see them again!”

Rhoda went to him.  Far, far below, she saw little dots of men making camp beyond the monastery near the desert.  Suddenly Rhoda sank to her knees with a cry of longing that was heart-breaking.

“O my people!  My own people!” she sobbed, crouching upon the canon edge.

Kut-le watched the little figure with inscrutable eyes.  Then he lifted the girl to her feet.

“Rhoda, are you going to eat your heart out for your own kind if you marry me?  Won’t I be sufficient?  It hadn’t occurred to me that I might not be!”

“You haven’t given up your people,” answered Rhoda.  “You are always going back to them.”

“But you aren’t really giving them up,” urged Kut-le.  “It really is I who make the sacrifice of my race!”

“And that is the reason for one of my fears,” cried Rhoda.  “I am afraid that some day you would find the price too great and that our marriage would be wrecked.”

“Even if I went back for a few months each year, would that make you unhappy?” asked Kut-le.

“Kut-le!” exclaimed Rhoda.  “I am not talking of externals.  I mean that if your longing for your own kind made you lose your love for me.  Oh, I can’t see any of it straight, but I am afraid!”

“Nonsense, Rhoda!  I fought that battle long before I knew you.  There is absolutely no danger of my reverting.  I am going to spend the rest of my life among the whites even if you shouldn’t marry me, Rhoda.  Rhoda, I wish I had had time to let you grow to it fully!”

Rhoda stood rigidly.  Molly, sensing trouble, hovered restlessly just out of earshot.

“If you married DeWitt,” Kut-le went on, “could you forget me?  Forget the desert?  Forget our days and nights?  Forget my arms about you?”

“Oh, no!  No!” cried Rhoda.  “You know that I shall love you always!”

“And will DeWitt want what you offer him?” Kut-le went on, mercilessly.

Rhoda winced.

“I wish,” said Kut-le huskily, “you never will know how I wish that you had come to me freely, feeling that the sacrifice was worth while!”

Rhoda looked at him wonderingly.  After all the weeks of iron determination, was the young giant weakening, was his great heart failing him!

“I had thought,” he went on, “that you were big enough to stand the test.  That after the travail and the heart scourging, you would see—­and would come to me freely—­strong enough to smile at all your regrets and fears.  That thought steeled me to put you through the torture.  But if now, at the end, you are coming to me only because you must!  Rhoda, I don’t want you on those terms.”