“I’ve heard John Burnham say it’s a reserve, a reticence that all primitive people have, especially mountaineers; a sort of Indian-like stoicism, but less than the Indian’s because the influences that produce it—­isolation, loneliness, companionship with primitive wilds-have been a shorter while at work.”

“That’s what attracted me,” said Marjorie frankly, “and I couldn’t help always trying to break it down—­but I never did.  Was—­was that what attracted you?” she asked naively.

“I don’t know—­but I felt it.”

“And did you try to break it down?”

“No; it broke me down.”

“Ah!” Marjorie looked very thoughtful for a moment.  They were getting perilously near the old theme now, and Gray was getting grim and Marjorie petulant.

And then suddenly: 

“Gray, did you ever ask Mavis to marry you?”

Gray reddened furiously and turned his face away.

“Yes,” he said firmly.  When he looked around again a hostile right shoulder was pointing at him, and over the other shoulder the girl was gazing at—­he knew not what.

“Marjorie, you oughtn’t to have asked me that.  I can’t explain very well.  I—­” He stumbled and

He stopped, for the girl had turned astonished eyes upon him.

“Explain what?” she asked with demure wonder.  “It’s all right.  I came near asking Jason to marry me.”

“Marjorie!” exploded Gray.

“Well!”

A negro boy burst down the path, panting: 

“Miss Marjorie, yo’ mother says you an’ Mr. Gray got to come right away.”

Both sprang to their feet, Gray white and Marjorie’s mischievous face all quick remorse and tenderness.  Together they went swiftly up the walk and out to the stile where Gray’s horse and buggy were hitched, and without a word Marjorie, bareheaded as she was, climbed into the buggy and they silently sped through the fields.

Mrs. Pendleton met them at the door, her face white and her hands clenched tightly in front of her.  Speechless with distress, she motioned them toward the door of the sick-room, and when the old colonel saw them coming together, his tired eyes showed such a leap of happiness that Gray, knowing that he misunderstood, had not the heart to undeceive him, and he looked helplessly to Marjorie.  But that extraordinary young woman’s own eyes answered the glad light in the colonel’s, and taking bewildered Gray by the hand she dropped with him on one knee by the bedside.

“Yes, Uncle Bob,” Gray heard her say tenderly, “Gray’s not going back to the mountains.  He’s going to stay here with us, for you and I need him.”

The old man laid a hand on the bright head of each, his eyes lighting with the happiness of his life’s wish fulfilled, and chokingly he murmured: 

“My children—­Gray—­Marjorie.”  And then his eyes rose above them to the woman who had glided in.

“Mary—­look here.”