As he stepped from the car the tumbling roar of the river filled his ears—that and the high pines’ sighing under the stars, and the sweet-scented night wind in his face greeted and met him as he set foot on the platform at Runner’s Rest station and looked around for the conveyance that he had asked Stephanie to send. There was nobody in sight except the baggage agent. He walked toward the rear of the station, turned the corner, and saw Stephanie standing there bareheaded in the starlight, wrapped in a red cloak, her hair in two heavy braids. "Steve!" he exclaimed. "Why on earth did you come—you darling!" "Did you imagine I wouldn’t?" she asked unsteadily. "I told you over the wire to send Williams with a buckboard." "Everybody was in bed when the telephone rang. So I concluded to sit up for you, and when the time came I went out to the stable, harnessed up, and drove over here." Her hand was trembling in his while she spoke, but her voice was under control. They turned together and went over to the buckboard. She stepped in; he strapped his suitcase on behind, then followed her and took the reins from her gloved hands. They were very quiet, but he could feel her tremble a little at times, when their shoulders were in contact. The tension betrayed itself in his voice at moments, too. "I have a night letter from Oswald," she said. "They telephoned it up from the station. He is coming to-morrow morning." "That’s fine. He’s a splendid fellow, Steve." "I have always known it." "I know you have. I’m terribly sorry that I did not know him better." The buckboard turned from the station road into a fragrant wood-road. In the scented dusk little night-moths with glistening wings drifted through the rays of the wagon-lamp like snowflakes. A bird, aroused from slumber in the thicket, sang a few sweet, sleepy notes. "Tell me," said Stephanie, in a low, tremulous voice. He understood: "It was entirely Oswald’s doing. I never dreamed of mentioning it to him. I was absolutely square to him and to you, Steve. I went there with no idea that he knew I was in love with you—or that you cared for me.... He met me with simple cordiality. We looked at his beautiful model for the fountain. I don’t think I betrayed in voice or look or manner that anything was wrong with me.... Then, with a very winning simplicity, he spoke of you, of himself.... There seemed to be nothing for me to say; he knew that I was in love with you, and that you had come to care for me.... And I heard a man speak to another man as only a gentleman could speak—a real man, rare and thoroughbred.... It cost him something to say to me what he said. His nerve was heart-breaking to me when he found the courage to tell me what his father had done.