"I suppose we should," he gloomily answered, though his heart was beating madly. "And in a few days I must think of hurrying home, too--of leaving this, all this," his hand waved toward the crimson west. "It will be as if I were emerging from a wonderful dream--from a crystal palace which will fall in little pieces; and I'll search and search for the rest of my life and never find it again! I shall miss my crystal palace!" For a moment neither dared to speak. It was very still in the fragrant lane and their horses, which all this while had been walking slower, now stopped as though in obedience to some whispered voice. Leaning gently toward her, trembling before a depth of feeling which had never until this time been so stirred, he said hoarsely: "I won't lose it! I can't lose it, Jane!" Distantly--yet almost out of the air about them, as if it were the spirit of Kentucky speaking with ineffable gentleness through the gathering twilight--a quintette of negroes, somewhere across the valley, sang in mellow, minor harmonies: "Weep no moh, mah lady; Oh, weep no moh, today!" He could see that her eyes were swimming in an adorable moisture, and her face, touched by the dying day, seemed to be whispering out to him through a glorified mist. "I can't live without it--now!" he was pleading desperately. "Neither can I," she whispered. Half an hour later, Mac was still sitting in the road, his head tilted inquiringly up at them: while the horses, still shoulder to shoulder, stood patiently champing their bits. CHAPTER XXXIX TRIUMPH When Dale had parted with Jess the westering sun was still half an hour from setting. As he strode powerfully on, his heart bounded with the thought of reopened opportunity--much as it did after Jane left him one other sunset evening when he had been looking into this same sort of sky. The little stream he followed soon crossed a narrow, tangled lane, and this he knew would lead out toward Flat Rock; but, as he turned into it, far down its shadowy aisle he saw Mac, tail up, smelling under a ledge of rock for chipmunks. There was no reason why the mountaineer should have sought a hiding-place, except for the wildness in his being which pointed cautionward; or, perhaps, feeling that Jane, not unattended, would be soon in sight, he may have preferred a more auspicious moment to deliver his gladsome tidings. At any rate, without giving much thought to whys or wherefores, he gained the bank overlooking the road and nestled securely in its foliage. Slowly, then, Mac came on, neither seeing nor suspecting; and slowly after him two riders came into view, at the very instant that the red sun dropped from sight.