It was long after midnight when they came at last to the Enchanted camps, walking like automatons and almost senseless with fatigue. Wade lifted the girl from the sled when they halted in front of the wangan. Her stiffened and cramped limbs would not move of themselves. And when she was on her feet, and staggered, he kept his arm about her, gently and unobtrusively. "This is the best home I have to offer you," he said. "Nina Ide is here waiting. We will wake her, and she will do for you what should be done. Oh, that sounds cold and formal, I know--but the poor girl waiting in there will put into words all the joy I feel but can't speak. My head is pretty light, and my heels heavy, and I don't seem to be thinking very clearly, Miss Barrett," he murmured, his voice weak with pathetic weariness. She was struggling with sobs, striving to speak; but he hastened on, as though at last his full heart found words. "This is--this--I hardly know how to say this. But I understand why you came." He felt her tremble. "But, my God, Elva, I don't dare to believe that you thought so ill of me that you were coming to plead with me for your father's sake." It was not resentment, it was passionate grief that burst from him, and she put her hands about his arm. "I told you it was folly that sent me," she sobbed. "But he had been unjust to you, Dwight. Oh, it was folly that sent me, but I wanted to know if you--if you--" She was silent and trembled, and when she did not speak he clasped her close, trembling as pitifully as she. "Oh, if you only dared say that you wanted to know whether I still loved you!" he breathed, in a broken whisper. "And I would say--" It seemed that his heart came into his throat, for her fingers pressed more closely upon his arm. In that instant he could not speak. He pretended to look for Christopher, but that wise woodsman's tact did not fail. He saw Christopher disappearing into the gloom of the dingle, and heard the careful lisp of the wooden latch in its socket and the cautious creak of the closing door. There was only the hush of the still night about him, and when he turned again the starlight was shining on Elva Barrett's upraised face. And her dark eyes were imperiously demanding that he finish his sentence--so imperiously that his tongue burst all the shackles of his sensitive prudence. "And I would say that my love is so far above the mean things of the world that they can't make it waver, and it is so unselfish that I can love you the more be-because you love your father and obey him. And all I ask is that you don't misunderstand me." There was deep meaning in his tones. "Oh Dwight, my boy," she moaned, "it's an awful thing for a daughter to disobey her father. But it's more awful when she finds that he--" But he put his fingers tenderly on her lips, and when she kissed them, tears coursing on her cheeks, he gathered her close, and his lips did the service that his fingers retired from in tremulous haste.