"I hope you will excuse my speaking," she added. "I--It seems there are so many grand possibilities in life, and for you--I couldn't bear to have you say you hadn't made good, as if it were all over." "I'm glad you spoke," he said, quickly. "I guess perhaps I have been all kinds of a fool. You have made me feel how many kinds I have been." "Oh no!" she protested. "You don't know what I have been," he said, sadly, and then with sudden conviction, as if he read her thoughts: "You _do_ know! That prig of a parson has told you! Well, it's just as well you should know. It's right!" A wave of misery passed over his face and erased all its brightness and hope. Even the gentleness was gone. He looked haggard and drawn with hopelessness all in a moment. "Do you think it would matter to me--_anything_ that man would say?" she protested, all her woman's heart going out in pity. "But it was true, all he said, probably, and more--" "It doesn't matter," she said, eagerly. "The other is true, too. Just as the poem says, 'All that man ignores in you, just that you are worth to God!' And you _can_ be what He meant you to be. I have been praying all the afternoon that He would help you to be." "Have you?" he said, and his eyes lit up again as if the altar-fires of hope were burning once more. "Have you? I thank you." "You came to me when I was lost in the wilderness," she said, shyly. "I wanted to help _you_ back--if--I might." "You will help--you have!" he said, earnestly. "And I was far enough off the trail, too, but if there's any way to get back I'll get there." He grasped her hand and held it for a second. "Keep up that praying," he said. "I'll see what can be done." Margaret looked up. "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad!" He looked reverently into her eyes, all the manhood in him stirred to higher, better things. Then, suddenly, as they stood together, a sound smote their ears as from another world. "Um! Ah!--" The minister stood within the doorway, barred by Bud in scowling defiance, and guarded by Cap, who gave an answering growl. Gardley and Margaret looked at each other and smiled, then turned and walked slowly down to where the pony stood. They did not wish to talk here in that alien presence. Indeed, it seemed that more words were not needed--they would be a desecration. So he rode away into the sunset once more with just another look and a hand-clasp, and she turned, strangely happy at heart, to go back to her dull surroundings and her uncongenial company. "Come, William, let's have a praise service," she said, brightly, pausing at the doorway, but ignoring the scowling minister. "A praise service! What's a praise service?" asked the wondering Bud, shoving over to let her sit down beside him.