“You great overgrown duffer,” his father retorted affectionately, “I thought you’d never come.”  He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, but failed to find it and searched through another pocket and still another.  “By gravy, son,” he remarked presently, “I do believe I left my silk handkerchief—­the one Moira gave me for my last birthday—­up yonder.  I wouldn’t lose that handkerchief for a farm.  Skip along and find it for me, son.  I’ll wait for you here.  Don’t hurry.”

“I’ll be back in a pig’s whisper,” his son replied, and started briskly up the trail, while his father leaned against a madrone tree and smiled his prescient little smile.

Bryce’s brisk step on the thick carpet of withered brown twigs aroused Shirley from her reverie.  When she looked up, he was standing in the centre of the little amphitheatre gazing at her.

“You—­you!” she stammered, and rose as if to flee from him.

“The governor sent me back to look for his handkerchief, Shirley,” he explained.  “He didn’t tell me you were here.  Guess he didn’t hear you.”  He advanced smilingly toward her.  “I’m tremendously glad to see you to-day, Shirley,” he said, and paused beside her.  “Fate has been singularly kind to me.  Indeed, I’ve been pondering all day as to just how I was to arrange a private and confidential little chat with you, without calling upon you at your uncle’s house.”

“I don’t feel like chatting to-day,” she answered a little drearily—­ and then he noted her wet lashes.  Instantly he was on one knee beside her; with the amazing confidence that had always distinguished him in her eyes, his big left arm went around her, and when her hands went to her face, he drew them gently away.

“I’ve waited too long, sweetheart,” he murmured.  “Thank God, I can tell you at last all the things that have been accumulating in my heart.  I love you, Shirley.  I’ve loved you from that first day we met at the station, and all these months of strife and repression have merely served to make me love you the more.  Perhaps you have been all the dearer to me because you seemed so hopelessly unattainable.”

He drew her head down on his breast; his great hand patted her hot cheek; his honest brown eyes gazed earnestly, wistfully into hers.  “I love you,” he whispered.  “All that I have—­all that I am—­all that I hope to be—­I offer to you, Shirley Sumner; and in the shrine of my heart I shall hold you sacred while life shall last.  You are not indifferent to me, dear.  I know you’re not; but tell me—­answer me—­”

Her violet eyes were uplifted to his, and in them he read the answer to his cry.  “Ah, may I?” he murmured, and kissed her.

“Oh, my dear, impulsive, gentle big sweetheart,” she whispered—­and then her arms went around his neck, and the fullness of her happiness found vent in tears he did not seek to have her repress.  In the safe haven of his arms she rested; and there, quite without effort or distress, she managed to convey to him something more than an inkling of the thoughts that were wont to come to her whenever they met.