He drew up the buggy-top and taking the little silver whistle from his pocket, gave a low whistle. It was ten minutes later before the side door of the cottage opened softly and a girl came noiselessly out. She slipped out, following the shadow line of the trees until she came up to the buggy. Then she threw the shawl from off her face and head and stood smiling up at Travis. It had been a pretty face, but now it was pinched by overwork and there was the mingling both of sadness and gladness in her eyes. But at sight of Travis she blushed joyfully, and deeper still when he held out his hand and drew her into the buggy and up to the seat beside him. "Maggie"--was all he whispered. Then he kissed her passionately on her lips. "I am glad I came," he went on, as he put one arm around her and drew her to him--"you're flushed and the ride will do you good." She was satisfied to let her head lie on his shoulder. "They are beauties"--she said after a while, as the trotters' thrilling, quick step brought the blood tingling to her veins. "Beauties for the beauty," said Travis, kissing her again. Her brown hair was in his face and the perfume of it went through him like the whistling flash of the first wild doe he had killed in his first boyish hunt and which he never forgot. "You do love me," she said at last, looking up into his face, where her head rested. She could not move because his arm held her girlish form to him with an overpowering clasp. "Why?" he asked, kissing her again and in sheer passionate excess holding his lips on hers until she could not speak, but only look love with her eyes. When she could, she sighed and said: "Because, you could not make me so happy if you didn't." He relaxed his arm to control the trotters, which were going too fast down the road. She sat up by his side and went on. "Do you know I have thought lots about what you said last Saturday night?" "Why, what?" he asked. She looked pained that he had forgotten. "About--about--our bein' married to each other--even--even--if--if--there's no preacher. You know--that true love makes marriages, and not a ceremony--and--and--that the heart is the priest to all of us, you know!" Travis said nothing. He had forgotten all about it. "One thing I wrote down in my little book when I got back home an' memorized it--Oh, you can say such beautiful things." He seized her and kissed her again. "I am so happy with you--always--" she laughed. He drove toward the shaded trees down by the river. "I want you to see how the setting moonlight looks on the river," he said. "There is nothing in all nature like it. It floats like a crescent above, falling into the arms of its companion below. All nature is love and never fails to paint a love scene in preference to all others, if permitted. How else can you account for it making two lover moons fall into each other's arms," he laughed. She looked at him enraptured. It was the tribute which mediocrity pays to genius.