It was a long time since he had seen a face as sweet and fresh as the one looking at him with pitying eyes, which said they knew his infirmity, and were sorry for him. All the best of his manhood was wakened to life by the sight of her. She was so different from the girls he had known,—different from Clarice, whose pet name, Mignon, given her by him when she was a baby, had escaped him in his sleep. He had never cared particularly for any of the fashionable young ladies of his acquaintance, although he had flirted with many of them, but his heart went out to Elithe at once, and it was not long before he knew that he loved her as he could never love any one again. Then began the struggle to conceal his love until such time as he had proved himself worthy of her, should that time ever come. He knew her father was watching him and respected him for it, and knew, too, that in Elithe’s mind there was no suspicion of his real feeling for her. Two or three times he came near betraying it and his identity, and the night before she left home he wrote to Clarice, telling her of his attachment to Elithe and asking her to be kind to her for his sake. This letter he tore up, deciding to let matters drift. Then he wrote the note which, with the ring, he gave to Elithe when he reached Helena. “That will keep me in her mind,” he thought, half expecting some acknowledgment of the gift and word to say that she remembered him. But none came and the weeks went by and he only heard from her through the letters sent to her father and mother. Of these he had pretty full accounts from Rob, and from him and the Boston Herald he heard of Clarice’s approaching marriage and felt humiliated and angry that the news should first reach him in this way. He did not deserve much at his sister’s hands, he knew, but he had written her twice that his debt to her should be paid, sending his letters to Denver, from which place they had been forwarded to her by his friend and confidant. She had not answered them, but he knew she must have received them, and, thinking he had made sufficient atonement for the past, he resented her neglect of him. “I’ll write her again, telling her where I am and that I have heard of her wedding and am going to it,” he thought, and he wrote the letter, which was prompted more by a desire to see Elithe than to be present at the marriage. Very anxiously he waited for Clarice’s answer, which was directed to Denver and then forwarded to him at Samona. “Something for you,” the P. M. said to him one morning, handing him the letter in which he recognized the handwriting of his Denver friend.