You’re goin’ back home—­you’ve got to—­some day—­I know that, and then the time would come when you’d be ashamed of me if I went with you.  It’s the same way with Jason and Marjorie.  Jason will have to come back here—­how do you suppose Marjorie would feel here, bein’ a woman, if you feel the way you do, bein’ a man?  Why, the time would come when she’d be ashamed o’ him—­only worse.  It won’t do, Gray.”  She turned his face toward the gap in the hills.

“You see that star there?  Well, that’s your star, Gray.  I named it for you, and every night I’ve been lookin’ out at it from my window in the loft.  And that’s what you’ve been to me and what Marjorie’s been to Jason—­just a star—­a dream.  We’re not really real to each other—­you an’ me—­and Marjorie and Jason ain’t.  Only Jason and I are real to each other and only you and Marjorie, Jason and I have been worshippin’ stars, and they’ve looked down mighty kindly on us, so that they came mighty nigh foolin’ us and themselves.  I read a book the other day that said ideals were stars and were good to point the way, but that people needed lamps to follow that way.  It won’t do, Gray.  You are goin’ back home to carry a lamp for Marjorie, and maybe Jason’ll come back to these hills to carry a lantern for me.”

Throughout the long speech the boy’s eyes had never wavered from hers.  After one or two efforts to protest he had listened quite intensely, marvelling at the startling revelation of such depths of mind and heart-the startling penetration to the truth, for he knew it was the truth.  And when she rose he stayed where he was, clinging to her hand, and kissing it reverently.  He was speechless even when, obeying the impulse of her hand, he rose in front of her and she smiled gently.

“You don’t have to say one word, Gray—­I understand, bless your dear, dear heart, I understand.  Good-by, now.”  She stretched out her hand, but his trembling lips and the wounded helplessness in his eyes were too much for her, and she put her arms around him, drew his head to her breast, and a tear followed her kiss to his forehead.  At the door she paused a moment.

“And until he comes,” she half-whispered, “I reckon I’ll keep my lamp burning.”  Then she was gone.

Slowly the boy climbed back to the little house on the spur, and to the porch, on which he sank wearily.  While he and Marjorie and Jason were blundering into a hopeless snarl of all their lives, this mountain girl, alone with the hills and the night and the stars, had alone found the truth—­and she had pointed the way.  The camp lights twinkled below.  The moon swam in majestic splendor above.  The evening star still hung above the little western gap in the hills.  It was his star; it was sinking fast:  and she would keep her lamp burning.  When he climbed to his room, the cry of the whippoorwill in the ravine came to him through his window—­futile, persistent, like a human wail for happiness.  The boy went to his knees at his bedside that night, and the prayer that went on high from the depths of his heart was that God would bring the wish of her heart to Mavis Hawn.