"O, Mr. Chillis! was not that a great mistake? Would not some kind of ambition have helped to fill up the blank in your life?" "I didn't have any--I couldn't have any, with that old Indian woman sittin' there, in the corner o' my hearth. When the crazy fit came on, I jest turned my back on home, an' mounted my horse for a long, lonely ride, or went to town and drank whisky till I was past rememberin' my trouble. But I never complained. The men I associated with expected me to amuse them, an' I generally did, with all manner o' wild freaks an' incredible stories--some o' which were truer than they believed, for I had had plenty of adventures in the mountains. White Rose, do you imagine I ever loved that squaw wife o' mine?" "I remember asking myself such a question, that night of the storm, as you stood by the fire, so still and strange. I was speculating about your history, and starting these very queries you have answered to-night." "But you have never asked me." "No; how could I? But I am glad to know. Now I understand the great patience--the tender, pathetic patience--which I have often remarked in you. Only those who have suffered long and silently can ever attain to it." "An' so people say, 'Poor old Joe!' an' they don't know what they mean, when they say it. They think I am a man without the ambitions an' passions of other men; a simple, good fellow, without too much brain, an' only the heart of a fool. But they don't know me--they don't know me!" "How could they, without hearing what you have just told me, or without knowing you as I know you?" "They never will know. I don't want to be pitied for my mistakes. 'Poor old Joe' is proud, as well as poor." Mrs. Smiley sat silent, gazing at the river's silver ripples. Her shapely hands were folded in her lap; her whole attitude quiet, absorbed. Whether she was thinking of what she had heard, or whether she had forgotten it, no one could have guessed from her manner; and Chillis could not wait to know. The fountains of the deep had been stirred until they would not rest. "Was there no other question you asked yourself about the old mountain man which he can answer? Did you never wonder whether he ever had loved at all?" "You have made me wonder, to-night, whether, at some period of your life, you have not loved some woman of your own race and color. You must have had some opportunities of knowing white women." "Very few. An' my pride was agin seekin' what I knew was not for me; for the woman I fancied to myself was no common white woman. White Rose, I carried a young man's heart in my bosom until I was near sixty, _an' then I lost it_." He put out a hand and touched one of hers, ever so lightly. "I need not tell you any more." A silence that made their pulses seem audible followed this confession. A heavy shadow descended upon both hearts, and a sudden dreary sense of an unutterable and unalterable sorrow burdened their spirits.