"I suppose," he went on, with a voice that came from a taut throat, which he forced into measured syllables, "I suppose that until I can offer you a home like this, I should not ask you to confess a love for me, even if you could feel it. I can't even ask you to marry me yet, and still because you must know it, because you have a heart that must tell you, it seems to me that it is only hypocritical to lock my lips. My heart is too full to be damned up. It must have utterance. It must say, 'I love you.' I can't go on any longer being just a favored friend." He paused a moment and wiped the moisture of his anxiety from his brow, and his voice was tensely even in its control. "It means too much now, for that. If I am living in a fool's paradise I must know it before it is too late. They say we men of the Cumberlands have somber natures that take things seriously. To hope too long--and then fail--" He broke off again and added quietly--"that would be a thing that would utterly ruin me. I love you." The girl did not at once speak. He saw that her face was downcast and that her breast rose and fell, in an emotion which might be pity. Perhaps she, too, found speech difficult because she was merciful. A man and a girl were coming toward the summer-house, and Henry Falkins watched them with a fascination of fear lest they interrupt. The seconds seemed to stretch into an interminable suspense. Slowly he put out his hand, and took hers. Her fingers trembled in his grasp and slowly he bent and kissed her lowered head. "I am waiting," he whispered; but something in the voice said more and told her of the torture of his doubt. At last, very slowly, her face came up and her eyes met his. They were misty eyes, but smiling, and as he bent with a wild leaping of his pulses and took her in his arms, her lips, too, met his, responsive to his kisses. Finally he rose, and now it was his own hands that trembled and his own senses that swam with the intoxication of a happiness which seemed to him miraculous. "I suppose," laughed the girl, "I ought to be ashamed to surrender so quickly--but I'm not. I'm very proud." For a moment after that they sat silent and across the moonlight came the band music and the softened laughter of the dancers. And it was at that moment that Newt Spooner, so close that they could almost have heard his breathing, was reaching into his pocket for his borrowed revolver. The pause was brief, for the girl, looking into her lover's eyes, became suddenly beset by a new thought--perhaps some subtle premonition--and in its wake came panic. She laid her hands on his shoulders and bent so close that he could feel the play of her breath on his forehead. "But you are going back there," she exclaimed; "back to the mountains, and I'm afraid. Are you in any danger, because, if you are, you sha'n't go! I won't let you go. Why, only to-day, there in Winchester, think what happened!" The man laughed.