“Miss Cahill, whatever happens to me I won’t forget this.  I won’t forget your coming here and throwing heart into me.  You were the only one who did.  I haven’t asked you if you believe that I—­”

She raised her eyes reproachfully and smiled.  “You know you don’t have to do that,” she said.

The prisoner seized the palings as though he meant to pull apart the barrier between them.  He drew a long breath like one inhaling a draught of clean morning air.

“No,” he said, his voice ringing, “I don’t have to do that.”

He cast a swift glance to the left and right.  The sentry’s bayonet was just disappearing behind the corner of the hut.  To the four hundred other eyes around the parade-ground Lieutenant Ranson’s attitude suggested that he was explaining to Cahill’s daughter what he wanted for his luncheon.  His eyes held her as firmly as though the palings he clasped were her two hands.

“Mary,” he said, and the speaking of her name seemed to stop the beating of his heart.  “Mary,” he whispered, as softly as though he were beginning a prayer, “you’re the bravest, the sweetest, the dearest girl in all the world.  And I’ve known it for months, and now you must know.  And there’ll never be any other girl in my life but you.”

Mary Cahill drew away from him in doubt and wonder.

“I didn’t mean to tell you just yet,” he whispered, “but now that I’ve seen you I can’t help it.  I knew it last night when I stood back there and watched your windows, and couldn’t think of this trouble, nor of anything else, but just you.  And you’ve got to promise me, if I get out of this all right—­you must—­must promise me—­”

Mary Cahill’s eyes, as she raised them to his, were moist and glowing.  They promised him with a great love and tenderness.  But at the sight Ranson protested wildly.

“No,” he whispered, “you mustn’t promise—­anything.  I shouldn’t have asked it.  After I’m out of this, after the court-martial, then you’ve got to promise that you’ll never, never leave me.”

Miss Cahill knit her hands together and turned away her head.  The happiness in her heart rose to her throat like a great melody and choked her.  Before her, exposed in the thin spring sunshine, was the square of ugly brown cottages, the bare parade-ground, in its centre Trumpeter Tyler fingering his bugle, and beyond on every side an ocean of blackened prairie.  But she saw nothing of this.  She saw instead a beautiful world opening its arms to her, a world smiling with sunshine, glowing with color, singing with love and content.

She turned to him with all that was in her heart showing in her face.

“Don’t!” he begged, tremblingly, “don’t answer.  I couldn’t bear it—­ if you said ‘no’ to me.”  He jerked his head toward the men who guarded him.  “Wait until I’m tried, and not in disgrace.”  He shook the gate between them savagely as though it actually held him a prisoner.