There was something delightfully suggestive in being thus waited upon by a young and handsome woman, and the ranger submitted to it with the awkward grace of one unaccustomed to feminine care. The knowledge that the girl was beneath him in birth, and that she was considered to be (in a sense) the lovely flower of a corrupt stock, made the manifest innocency of her voice and eyes the more appealing. He watched her moving about the room with eyes in which a furtive flame glowed. "This seems a long way from that dinner at Redfield's, doesn't it?" he remarked, as she turned from spreading the blankets on the couch. "It is another world," she responded, and her face took on a musing gravity. Then they faced each other in silence, each filled with the same delicious sense of weakness, of danger, reluctant to say good-night, longing for the closer touch which dawning love demanded, and yet--something in the girl defended her, defeated him. "You must call me if I can be of any help," he repeated, and his voice was tremulous with feeling. "I will do so," she answered. Still they did not part. His voice was very tender as he said, "I don't like to see you exposed to such experiences." "I was not afraid--only for you a little," she answered. "The Redfields like you. Eleanor told me she would gladly help you. Why do you stay here?" "I cannot leave my mother." "I'm not so sure of your duty in that regard. She got on without you for ten years. You have a right to consider yourself. You don't belong here." "Neither do you," she retorted. "Oh yes, I do--at least, the case is different with me; my work is here. It hurts me to think of going back to the hills, leaving you here in the midst of these wolves." He was talking now in the low, throbbing utterance of a man carried out of himself. "It angers me to think that the worst of these loafers, these drunken beasts, can glare at you--can speak to you. They have no right to breathe the same air with one like you." She did not smile at this; his voice, his eyes were filled with the gravity of the lover whose passion is not humorous. Against his training, his judgment, he was being drawn into closer and closer union with this daughter of violence, and he added: "You may not see me in the morning." "You must not go without seeing my mother. You must have your breakfast with us. It hurt us to think you didn't come to us for supper." Her words meant little, but the look in her eyes, the music in her voice, made him shiver. He stammered: "I--I must return to my duties to-morrow. I should go back to-night." "You mustn't do that. You can't do that. You are to appear before the judge." He smiled. "That is true. I'd forgotten that." Radiant with relief, she extended her hand. "Good-night, then. You must sleep."