Behind the two by the fire a door opened and, on the threshold stood Levi Markham perplexed and awed. Slowly the meaning of the scene came to him; Matilda had somewhat prepared him; the question of the girl by Sandy's side shed a blinding light upon the confusion of his thoughts. Standing there, rugged and strong, he seemed the personification of power and solution. But he was waiting; he must know what Sandy felt! He drew back into the cold, dark passage and played the eavesdropper for the first and last time in his life. "Mine! mine!" Never had Sandy's voice known that tone before. Levi bowed his head. "You are mine! Yes, lil' Cyn, there is a law, there must be a law that can give us to each other; I have been waiting for you by The Way all my life, and you have come to me, lil' girl, at last--my lil' Cyn." Then Levi Markham stole away. He felt along the passage with outstretched hands for his eyes were blinded. He must waken Matilda; he must--but there he paused. The door, at which he had just stood, was opening! He had time, only, to crouch in the shadow of a turn of the hallway before Sandy and Cynthia came out. Sandy had his right arm protectingly around the girl; her bright head rested on his shoulder; in his left hand Sandy held high a lighted candle. "We must tell them, dear heart," he was whispering; "they two before any one else." And then Levi, seeing flight possible, ran to his sister's room in order that he might share the confidence that he already possessed. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's A Son of the Hills, by Harriet T. Comstock