Shefford ended, overcome with emotion.  In the dusk he could not see the girl’s face, but the white form that had drooped so listlessly seemed now charged by some vitalizing current.  He knew he had spoken irrationally; still he held it no dishonor to have told her he loved her as one dead.  If she took that love to the secret heart of living Fay Larkin, then perhaps a spirit might light in her darkened soul.  He had no thought yet that Fay Larkin might ever belong to him.  He divined a crime—­he had seen her agony.  And this avowal of his was only one step toward her deliverance.

Softly she rose, retreating into the shadow.

“Forgive me if I—­I disturb you, distress you,” he said.  “I wanted to tell you.  She was—­somehow known to you.  I am not happy.  And are you happy? . . .  Let her memory be a bond between us. . . .  Good night.”

“Good night.”

Faintly as the faintest whisper breathed her reply, and, though it came from a child forced into womanhood, it whispered of girlhood not dead, of sweet incredulity, of amazed tumult, of a wondering, frantic desire to run and hide, of the bewilderment incident to a first hint of love.

Shefford walked away into the darkness.  The whisper filled his soul.  Had a word of love ever been spoken to that girl?  Never—­not the love which had been on his lips.  Fay Larkin’s lonely life spoke clearly in her whisper.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Next morning as the sun gilded the looming peaks and shafts of gold slanted into the valley she came swiftly down the path to the spring.

Shefford paused in his task of chopping wood.  Joe Lake, on his knees, with his big hands in a pan of dough, lifted his head to stare.  She had left off the somber black hood, and, although that made a vast difference in her, still it was not enough to account for what struck both men.

“Good morning,” she called, brightly.

They both answered, but not spontaneously.  She stopped at the spring and with one sweep of her strong arm filled the bucket and lifted it.  Then she started back down the path and, pausing opposite the camp, set the bucket down.

“Joe, do you still pride yourself on your sour dough?” she asked.

“Reckon I do,” replied Joe, with a grin.

“I’ve heard your boasts, but never tasted your bread,” she went on.

“I’ll ask you to eat with us some day.”

“Don’t forget,” she replied.

And then shyly she looked at Shefford.  She was like the fresh dawn, and the gold of the sun shone on her head.

“Have you chopped all that wood—­so early?” she asked.

“Sure,” replied Shefford, laughing.  “I have to get up early to keep Joe from doing all the camp chores.”

She smiled, and then to Shefford she seemed to gleam, to be radiant.

“It’d be a lovely morning to climb—­’way high.”