"But I'd forgiven you, an'--an' it wasn't all yoh fault!" Then, looking up at him with hardly a trace of embarrassment, she added: "The blind girl showed me! You'd ought to know her, Brent!" "Who is that blind girl?" "Who? Oh, Brent, don't you know a-tall? Listen!" She turned him about and pointed to the horizon beyond Snarly Knob. There was a subcurrent of excitement in her voice, and the night seemed to grow more still as she went on speaking. The story was dramatic and moving, and frequently her eyes would strain toward the distant sky-line as though the face of some strong presence were gazing out with inscrutable calmness. It was some time again before either of them spoke, and, when he did, she was watching him with a new softness. "Who'd ever suppose," he murmured, gazing into the blue-black east which drew him with something more than a curious interest, "there was anything like that up in those God-forsaken mountains!" "Miss Jane says there are things like that everywhere, Brent." "Maybe there are," he took a deep breath. "I've just happened to miss 'em. I wish I hadn't." She could not help laughing just a little at his doleful expression--and, moreover, she was happy, just a little, too. "You seem to have repentance pasted all over you, Brent! Pappy gets that way when his whiskey runs out. But it's moh becomin' to you! I wish Miss Jane could see it!" He flushed, and she laughed again. "Miss Jane has already seen us tonight," he said in a low voice. "I don't know about her, or Dale, but there are others who'll put an entirely false construction on our being together. You know that. Tell me something: would you be willing to marry me and go away tomorrow?" Just how far Nancy's vision penetrated this speech, perhaps she did not know; but she stood very still, scarcely breathing and holding her hands in a vice-like grip. She tried to make another pretense of laughing, but it failed; and her voice was sad when she turned to him. "I don't reckon I'm the kind that'll be hurt much by what people say." Coming nearer, her eyes searched his face which was still turned to the ground, and she whispered: "Which'd be worse, Brent: goin' away married an' without love, or unmarried an' with love?" He looked up in surprise: "The world wouldn't talk if we were married!" "Don't you believe it, Brent," she said quietly. "The world 'd talk if you married a girl like me, moh'n it would if you didn't. I've been awake for seven days, Brent, an' I ain't a girl no moh in some ways. An' Brent," her cheeks were flaming now, "I might give you anythin' if we honest loved, an' not be ashamed;--but as we don't, a thousand marriages couldn't keep me from shrivelin' up whenever you looked at me! We'd despise each other in no time," she added, with another forced laugh. "I don't know," he murmured. "Well, I do," she now exclaimed with her old time gaiety. "Stand right still, an' shut yoh eyes, an' don't move till I say good night! Promise?"