"Everyone I sell the book to cries when they have read it: 'If I had been that fellow, I'd have kicked that old preacher into Hades.' It's what you tell in the last part of the book that arouses the people. But they all think _he_ acted with poor judgment in the end; but if _he_ hadn't allowed that to come to pass, I would never have known you." Miss Palmer was tantalizing. "Out in this _Rosebud Country_, of which the story is told, are there no colored people?" "None." "I should think it would be dreadfully lonesome." "Why so? The white people are kind and sociable." "Yes, but I would prefer my kind. Still, I suppose if one lived there and had their all there, it would be different." "Yes," he agreed, "it would be different." "You will, no doubt, marry one of the many girls you meet before you return, and then live happily ever afterwards." "That is nice to listen to. Nice girls, that is, girls who are willing to sacrifice to an end that would help both, are, to say the least, hard to find." "Yes, in a sense; but there are plenty. And all want husbands. Of course, when you have been widowed, grass-widowed, it's different...." "Well, yes; but I see no reason, if she is the right kind of girl, why she cannot re-marry and be happy in the end." "Oh, you don't," she essayed. "Well, there is. A woman is never regarded as the same. The looks she gets are not like the ones bestowed upon her when she, or before she married. They are looks--looks that are not honest," she sighed. He was silent. "And the men are the cause of it. All of it. Sometimes I hate men." He saw her now, calmly. She was uneasy under the look he gave her. And then he was silent again. She went on: "Of course, there are some that are different. Yourself, for instance." "In what way?" "So many I hardly like to say. So unassuming, for one. And then you--oh I won't say it." "Please do." "Not until you have told me more about yourself. Has it occurred to you that you have told me nothing, absolutely nothing about yourself?" She was looking at him now. He winced. "Of course, if a woman is--is--well, easy enough to go into the mountains and on an outing with the man--a man who has told her nothing of himself, then, it--he cannot be censured." She watched a pine squirrel now that played near, and who regarded them out of eyes that made Miss Palmer feel guilty. "You are like a stone wall when it comes to secrets. Did you ever really love anyone?" "Yes." "Oh, you don't mean it!" she cried in feigned surprise. "Who was it?" "You would be no wiser if I told you."