O-liver had told Jane about his marriage on the night before Tommy came to her. He had asked her to ride with him. "If you'll go this afternoon at four you shall have Mary Pick, and I'll take Tommy's horse." They had carried their lunch with them and had eaten it at sunset in a lovely spot where the canon opened out to show a shining yellow stretch of sea, with the hills like black serpents running into it. Yet it was dark, with the stars above them and the sea a faint gray below, before O-liver said to her what he had brought her there to say. He told her of his father and mother. Of Fluffy Hair. "I waked up at last to the fact that I was letting two women support me. So I came here and began to work at fifteen dollars a week. And for the first time in my life I respected myself--and was content. And then I met you and saw things ahead. You made me see them." He turned toward her in the dark. "Jane, I'm finding that I love you--mightily." He tried to speak lightly. "And I'm not free. And because I love you I've got to keep away. But I want you to understand that my friendship is the same--that it will always be the same. But I've got to keep away." She was very honest about it. "I didn't dream that you felt like that--about me." "No, you wouldn't. That's a part of your splendidness. Never taking anything to yourself. Jane, will you believe this--that what I may be hereafter will be because of you? If I ever do a big thing or a fine thing it will be because I came upon you that night with your head high and that rabble round you. You were light shining into the darkness of Tinkersfield. Jove, I wish I were a painter to put you on canvas as you were that night!" They had ridden down later under the stars, and as they had stood for a moment overlooking the lights of the little town O-liver had said: "I make my big speech to-morrow night to beat Tillotson. I want you to be there. Will you? If I know you are there somewhere in the dark I shall pour out my soul--to you." Was it any wonder that Jane, talking to Tommy the next morning about O-liver, felt her pulses pounding, her cheeks burning? She had lain awake all night thinking of the things he had said to her. It seemed a very big and wonderful thing that a man could love her like that. As toward morning the moonlight streamed in and she still lay awake she permitted herself to let her mind dwell for a moment on what her future might mean if he were in it. She was too busy and healthy to indulge in useless regrets. But she knew in that moment in the moonlight if he was not to be in her future no other man would ever be. VIII