“I understand,” he said.  “I’m not sorry I spoke.  I felt your trouble, whatever it is. . . .  Do not retreat into your cold shell, I beg of you. . . .  Let me trust you with my secret.”

He saw her shake out of the cold apathy.  She wavered.  He felt an inexplicable sweetness in the power his voice seemed to have upon her.  She bowed her head in acquiescence.  And Shefford began his story.  Did she grow still, like stone, or was that only his vivid imagination?  He told her of Venters and Bess—­of Lassiter and Jane—­of little Fay Larkin—­of the romance, and then the tragedy of Surprise Valley.

“So, when my Church disowned me,” he concluded, “I conceived the idea of wandering into the wilds of Utah to save Fay Larkin from that canyon prison.  It grew to be the best and strongest desire of my life.  I think if I could save her that it would save me.  I never loved any girl.  I can’t say that I love Fay Larkin.  How could I when I’ve never seen her—­when she’s only a dream girl?  But I believe if she were to become a reality—­a flesh-and-blood girl—­that I would love her.”

That was more than Shefford had ever confessed to any one, and it stirred him to his depths.  Mary bent her head on her hands in strange, stonelike rigidity.

“So here I am in the canyon country,” he continued.  “Withers tells me it is a country of rainbows, both in the evanescent air and in the changeless stone.  Always as a boy there had been for me some haunting promise, some treasure at the foot of the rainbow.  I shall expect the curve of a rainbow to lead me down into Surprise Valley.  A dreamer, you will call me.  But I have had strange dreams come true. . . .  Mary, do you think this dream will come true?”

She was silent so long that he repeated his question.

“Only—­in heaven,” she whispered.

He took her reply strangely and a chill crept over him.

“You think my plan to seek to strive, to find—­you think that idle, vain?”

“I think it noble. . . .  Thank God I’ve met a man like you!”

“Don’t praise me!” he exclaimed, hastily.  “Only help me. . . .  Mary, will you answer a few little questions, if I swear by my honor I’ll never reveal what you tell me?”

“I’ll try.”

He moistened his lips.  Why did she seem so strange, so far away?  The hovering shadows made him nervous.  Always he had been afraid of the dark.  His mood now admitted of unreal fancies.

“Have you ever heard of Fay Larkin?” he asked, very low.

“Yes.”

“Was there only one Fay Larkin?”

“Only one.”

“Did you—­ever see her?”

“Yes,” came the faint reply.

He was grateful.  How she might be breaking faith with creed or duty!  He had not dared to hope so much.  All his inner being trembled at the portent of his next query.  He had not dreamed it would be so hard to put, or would affect him so powerfully.  A warmth, a glow, a happiness pervaded his spirit; and the chill, the gloom were as if they had never been.