“Now we must go,” he said at last. “If there is the malaria I strongly suspect in your system, this night air is none too good for you. I only wanted you to see the lake the first night in your new home, and if it won't shock you, I brought you here because this is my holy of holies. Can you guess why I wanted you to come, Ruth?” “If I wasn't so stupid with alternate burning and chills, and so deadened to every proper sensibility, I suppose I could,” she answered, “but I'm not brilliant. I don't know, unless it is because you knew it would be the loveliest place I ever saw. Surely there is no other spot in the world quite so beautiful.” “Then would it seem strange to you,” asked the Harvester going to the Girl and gently putting his arms around her, “would it seem strange to you, that a woman who once homed here and thought it the prettiest place on earth, chose to remain for her eternal sleep, rather than to rest in a distant city of stranger dead?” He felt the Girl tremble against him. “Where is she?” “Very close,” said the Harvester. “Under this oak. She used to say that she had a speaking acquaintance with every tree on our land, and of them all she loved this big one the best. She liked to come here in winter, and feel the sting of the wind sweeping across the lake, and in summer this was her place to read and to think. So when she slept the unwaking sleep, Ruth, I came here and made her bed with my own hands, and then carried her to it, covered her, and she sleeps well. I never have regretted her going. Life did not bring her joy. She was very tired. She used to say that after her soul had fled, if I would lay her here, perhaps the big roots would reach down and find her, and from her frail frame gather slight nourishment and then her body would live again in talking leaves that would shelter me in summer and whisper her love in winter. Of all Medicine Woods this is the dearest spot to me. Can you love it too, Ruth?” “Oh I can!” cried the Girl; “I do now! Just to see the place and hear that is enough. I wish, oh to my soul I wish----” “You wish what?” whispered the Harvester gently. “I dare not! I was wild to think of it. I would be ungrateful to ask it.” “You would be ungracious if you didn't ask anything that would give me the joy of pleasing you. How long is it going to require for you to learn, Ruth, that to make up for some of the difficulties life has brought you would give me more happiness than anything else could? Tell me now.” “No!” He gathered her closer. “Ruth, there is no reason why you should be actively unkind to me. What is it you wish?” She struggled from his arms and stood alone in white moonlight, staring across the lake, along the shore, deep into the perfumed forest, and then at the mound she now could distinguish under the giant tree. Suddenly she went to him and with both shaking hands gripped his arm.