But Harlan did not have the courage to examine his sentiments too closely. Only, after he had sealed the letter and inscribed it, he lay back in his chair awhile, and then, having reflected that after three weeks he would no longer be his own man, he decided that he'd better run up to Fort Canibas and attend to his business interests. And he departed hastily the next morning, in spite of the Duke's puzzled and rather indignant protests that business wasn't suffering beyond what the telephone and mails could cure, and that he himself would go home the next week and see to everything. There are some men who are strong enough to run away from weakness. Not that Harlan Thornton admitted that he was weak in the presence of Madeleine Presson. But he felt a sudden hunger for the big hills, the wide woods, the serene silences. He wanted to get his mental footing again. He had been swept off in a flood of new experiences. Just now he found himself in a state of mind that he did not understand. "I'll go back and let the old woods talk to me," he whispered to himself. Then he tore up the letter he had written to Clare Kavanagh. It had occurred to him that he could tell it to her so much better. So when he came to Fort Canibas in the evening of the second day he mounted his horse and rode across the big bridge. He went before he had read the letters piled on the table in the gloomy old mess-hall. And he brusquely told the waiting Ben Kyle to save his business talk until the morning. CHAPTER XX A GIRL'S HEART He walked his horse when he reached the farther shore. He was wondering just what he was to say to Dennis Kavanagh. They had not parted in a manner that invited further intimacy. From twin windows of the house on the hill lights glowed redly, as though they were Dennis Kavanagh's baleful little eyes. Fear was not the cause of the young man's hesitation. But he dreaded another scene in the presence of the girl. Kavanagh and his grandfather had brutally violated an innocent friendship. They had put into insulting words what neither he nor Clare had dreamed of--he hastily assured himself that they were not lovers. More than ever before he now felt infinite tenderness toward her--compassion, sympathy--an overpowering impulse to seek her. He had much to tell her. He could not think of any one in all the world who would listen as she would listen. The red eyes glowering out of the summer gloom did not daunt him; they suggested tyranny and insulting suspicion, and he pitied her the more. He rode on past the tall cross of the church-yard. A voice out of the silence startled him. A white figure stood in the shadow of the church porch. "Come here, Big Boy," she said. "I'm not a ghost. I'm only Clare. I've been waiting for you." He left his horse, and hurried to her. "Waiting for me? I did not write. Have you second sight, little Clare?"